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THE CLASS OF 1834. 



MEMORIALS 



THE CLASS OF 1834 



OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 



PREPARED FOR THE 



Jnfttetf) anmbersatj) of tfjetr ffitatruattcm, 



BY 

THOMAS CUSHING, 

AT THE REOJJEST OF HIS CLASSMATES. 




BOSTON : 

DAVID CLAPP & SON 

1884. 



PREFACE. 



By the unanimous request of the members of the 
Harvard Class of 1834, present at the Annual Meet- 
ing, Commencement, 1883, I consented to try to bring 
together such simple memoirs of the dead and living 
as would satisfy, in a measure, the natural desire to 
know something of the doings of those with whom we 
had the peculiar and intimate relations of classmates 
fifty years ago. The early and lamented death of the 
Class Secretary, Dr. Samuel Parkman, and the absence 
of any regular record, has made it difficult to give a 
full account of some of those who died long since; 
but the attempt has been made to supply the omission 
and gain the desirable information by extensive cor- 
respondence and searching every accessible record. 
For the assistance that the compiler has received from 
various classmates he desires here to express his grate- 
ful thanks. 

Thomas Cushln t g. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Pkeface ......... V 

List of Graduates of 1834 .... ix 

Necrology of Graduates of 1834 . . . xi 

Memoirs of the Deceased .... 1 

Notices of the Survivors 43 

List of Students some time in the Class of 1834, 

who did not graduate with it 103 

Notices of Students above mentioned . . . 105 



GRADUATES 

OF THE CLASS OF 1834. 



Page, 

William LeRoy Annin, 43 

Kinsman Atkinson, 45 

■* Gideon Forrester Barstow, 25 

Henry Blanchard, 47 

Edward Darley Boit, 52 

*Edward Bradstreet, 6 

# Caleb Alexander Buckingham, ..... 2 

Henry Burroughs, 54 

*Thaddeus Clapp, 22 

James Freeman Colman, 56 

Benjamin Eddy Cotting, 57 

* William Smith Cruft, 11 

Thomas Cushing, 62. 

*Elbridge Gerry Cutler, ...... 7 

*Thomas Donaldson, 33 

Frederic Dwight, ....... 70 

* James Tilghman Earle, 38 

Samuel Morse Felton, 70 

*Samuel Conant Foster, .29 

*Edward Fox, 36 

*Eugene Fuller, 19 

*Miles Teel Gardner, 27 

Henry Gassett, . .74 

*Zebina Montagu Gleason, 27 

Henry Francis Harrington, 75 

^George Henry Hastings, 15 

*Aaron Hayden, 25 

Isaac Hinckley, 76 

B 



THE CLASS OF 1834. 



*rufus hosmer, 

# Nathaniel Babcock Ingersoll, 

I^Benjamin Knower, 

*Rufus Tilden King, . 

*Drausin Balthazar Labranche, 

*Rufus Bigelow Lawrence, 

Charles Mason, 
*George Moore, 
*Lucius Parker, 

Charles Breck Parkman, 
^Samuel Parkman, . 

John Witt Randall, 
* William Putnam Richardson 

Samuel William Rodman, 

Joseph Sargent, 
^Turner Sargent, 
*William Vincent Thacher, . 
# Charles Thacher, 

Royall Tyler, 

Charles Eliot Ware, 

Charles Newell Warren, . 

Hiram Wellington, . 

Nathaniel West, . 
^Charles Henry Wheelwright, 

f*ROBERT WlCKLIFFE, 

Joseph Hartwell Williams, . 



Page. 

20 

1 

2 

89 

15 

5 

78 

8 

29 

83 

16 

83 

19 

86 

88 

31 

3 

3 

91 

92 

93 

94 

96 

23 

13 

97 



f Finished the college course, but did not receive their degrees in 1834, and 
never applied for them subsequently. 



NECROLOGY. 



Nathaniel Babcock Ingersoll. 

Died at Brookline, Mass. March, 1836. 

Benjamin Knower. 
Died at Albany, N. Y. October, 1836. 

Willi am Vincent Thacher. 

Died at Sea on voyage frcm Savannah, July 16, 1839. 

Caleb Alexander Buckingham. 
Died at Geneva, 111 January, 1841. 

Kufus Bigelow Lawrence. 

Died at Pau, France, Jan. 13, 1841. 

Edward Bradstreet. 

Died at Beverly, Mass. Dec. 13, 1844. 

Elbridge Gerry Cutler. 

Died at Reading, Penn. . April 28, 1846. 

George Moore. 

Died at Quincy, HI March 11, 1847. 

William Smith Cruft. 

Died at Paris, France, July 16, 1847. 

KOBERT WlCEXIFFE. 
Died at Lexington, Ky 1849. 



xii THE CLASS OF 1834. 

Drausin Balthazar Labranche. 
Died at St. Charles, La Aug. 26, 1853. 

George Henry Hastings. 

Died at Chattanooga, Tenn Sept. 2, 1854. 

Samuel Parkman. 
Died at Boston, Dec. 15, 1854. 

William Putnam Kichardson. 

Died at Kendall, IU March 27, 1857. 

Eugene Fuller. 

Lost at Sea, June 21, 1859. 

KUFUS HOSMER. 
Died at Lansing, Mich April 20, 1861. 

Thaddeus Clapp. 
Died at Dorchester, Mass July 10, 1861. 

Charles Henry Wheelwright. 

Died at the Naval Hospital, Pilotstown, Miss July 30, 1862. 

Gideon Forrester Barstow. 

Died at Fort Independence, Boston Harbor, June 5, 1864. 

Aaron Hayden. 

Died at Eastport, Maine, Oct. 22, 1865. 

Miles Teel Gardner. 

Died at Detroit, Mich 1867. 

Zebina Montagu Gleason. 

Died at Westboro', Mass Aug. 18, 1868. 

Lucius Parker. 
Died 1&68. 



NECROLOGY. xm 

Charles Thacher. 

Died at Boston, March 23, 1869. 

Samuel Con ant Foster. 

Died at New York April 18, 1873. 

Turner Sargent. 
Died at Boston, Feb. 24, 1877. 

Thomas Donaldson. 

Died at Baltimore, Md Oct. 4, 1877. 

Edward Fox. 

Died at Portland, Maine, Dec. 14, 1881. 

James Tilghman Earle. 

Died at Centreville, Md. June 26, 1883. 

Kufus Tilden King. 

Died at Boston, July 7, ] 883. 



ADDENDUM. 

Henry Burroughs. 

Died at Boston June 8 > 1884 ' 



MEMOIRS OF THE DECEASED. 



MEMOIRS OF THE DECEASED. 



NATHANIEL BABCOCK INGERSOLL. 

"1STTATHANIEL BABCOCK INGERSOLL, son of Nathan- 
-^ iel and Eliza (Babcock) Ingersoll, was born in Brookline, 
Mass., Dec. 15, 1813. He was fitted for college at the High 
School in his native town. During his collegiate course, which 
was highly creditable to him, he lived with his widowed mother 
in a modest house within walking distance of the college, where 
his friends in the class enjoyed a simple and sweet hospitality. 
His personal appearance, manners, conversation, everything 
about him, indicated uncommon sweetness, purity and conscien- 
tiousness. Everybody loved and respected him and hoped that, 
with increasing years, he would acquire a physical vigor that 
seemed to be the only thing necessary to make his virtues and 
accomplishments of lasting benefit to his friends and society. 
But the somewhat obscure indications of consumption rapidly 
increased after his graduation. He filled, while he was able, 
with much success the position of Assistant in the High School 
at Brookline, where he was born and educated, and was the first 
of the class to pass the veil, dying in March, 1836, at the early 
age of twenty-two. 
1 



THE CLASS OF 1834. 



CHAELES KNOWER. 



CHARLES KNOWER, son of Benjamin Knower, was born 
at Albany, N. Y., Feb. 2, 1815. 

He joined the class of 1834 at the beginning of the Sopho- 
more year, and showed himself to be a man of scholarly habits, 
pure tastes, and upright life and character. He was of rather a 
reserved nature ; but those who gained his intimacy found in 
him a friend well worth having. Like many others of the class 
he did not take his degree at the close of the Senior year, and 
his early death, the second in the class, prevented his ever apply- 
ing for it. 

Soon after leaving college he began the study of the law with 
his brother-in-law, Gov. Marcy, so prominent in the politics of 
New York at that time, and after a year continued the study 
with Mr. Stevens, an eminent lawyer of Albany. He applied 
himself very closely to his studies, and bid fair to become an 
ornament to his profession. 

In the winter of 1835 and '36 he was appointed private secre- 
tary to Gov. Marcy, which gave him an opportunity to become 
acquainted with men and things. In the following summer he 
travelled through the western country, where it is supposed he 
contracted the disease, bilious fever, which terminated in his 
death. He bore his last illness with patience and resignation, 
fully supported by his firm belief in Christ and the glorious 
promises of his religion. Thus died in the autumn of 1836, and 
at the early age of twenty-one, a young man of great excellence 
and promise. 



CALEB ALEXANDER BUCKINGHAM. 

ptALEB ALEXANDER BUCKINGHAM, son of Joseph 
^-^ T. and Melinda (Alvord) Buckingham, was born in Boston, 
Oct. 8, 1814. 



WILLIAM VINCENT AND CHARLES THACHER. 3 

He received his preparation for college at the Boston Latin 
School, under Masters Gould and Leverett, and entered college 
in 1830. As a student he was noted especially for his fondness 
for argument and his readiness with his pen. He had grown up 
in the atmosphere of journalism, his father being editor of that 
well-known and popular paper, the Boston Courier, and also of 
a magazine, which afforded the young student a fair field to try 
his powers of comment on the affairs of the day and the literary 
topics of the time. After graduating he studied law with Gov. 
Ellsworth of Connecticut, and established himself at Geneva, 
formerly called La Fox, Kane County, Illinois, in the autumn 
of 1836, and resided there till his death in January, 1841, having 
visited Boston once in the meantime. This early death, only 
seven years after graduation, and the third in his class, cut him 
off from showing those talents and acquisitions which would 
almost surely have led to distinction in the new country where 
he had settled. 



WILLIAM VINCENT and CHARLES THACHER. 

TTTILLIAM VINCENT and CHARLES THACHER, twin 

' ' sons of Charles and Caroline (Hutchings) Thacher, were 
born in Boston, April 15, 1815. They were members of the 
same class in the Boston Latin School, where they made an ex- 
cellent preparation for college, the Latin School being then in a 
very efficient condition. Being rather young for college life they 
devoted an extra year to advanced school studies, as was the case 
with a number of Latin School boys entering college at this time. 
They naturally roomed together and prosecuted their studies with 
about the same success, having honorable parts together in the 
May Exhibition of 1833. Beyond this the interesting relation 
between them did not, however, specially extend. There was 



4 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

no striking similarity of person , disposition or character. William 
was cautious and hard to influence. He brought everything to 
the test of pure reason, and cared little for popularity or the 
opinion of others. Charles was frank, sympathetic and impulsive. 

Their lives which had run, outwardly at least, in the same 
channel till the close of their college course, now diverged. 
William, in accordance with plans of long standing, began the 
study of theology in the Harvard Divinity School, and Charles 
that of medicine in the Medical School. This separation proved 
final. At the close of their studies, William preached for a time 
at Savannah, Gra., and died while on his passage north in en- 
feebled health July 16, 1839, being among the first of the class 
to take his departure from this life. 

During his short pastorate he had made himself deeply respected 
and beloved. His parishioners flocked on board the vessel which, 
it was hoped, would bear him where his health might be restored ; 
but this hope proving vain, they erected a tablet in his church 
with the following inscription : 

In memory of 

Eev. William Vincent Thacher, 

Pastor of this Church. 

A modest and humble Christian, 

the principles and precepts of his Master 

which he inculcated from the pulpit 

he exemplified in his own character 

and illustrated by a consistent life. 

Of gentle manners and warm affections, 

he won many souls to Christ 

by his mild and pathetic eloquence. 

Those who might have resisted a bolder appeal 

yielded to his calm and quiet teaching, 

acknowledging the power of sincere piety 

and the charms of simple goodness. 

Charles sailed for Havre, Nov. 10, 1837, and studied at Paris 
till July, 1839. He then travelled extensively in Europe, coming 
home to his family upon hearing the death of his brother. He 
did not permanently follow the profession of medicine, but be- 
came a partner in a wholesale periodical business and eventually 



IUJFUS BIGELOW LAWRENCE. 5 

bought the whole of it. It proved very profitable, and finally 
became merged in the great corporation of the American News 
Co. Dr. Thacher was a member of the Cincinnati ; also of the 
Masonic fraternity. He finally fell a victim to enlargement of 
the liver, bearing the wasting pain of a two years' illness with 
marvellous patience, and dying March 23, 1869, at the age of 
fifty-three, in the house where he was born in Chestnut St. His 
last words were, "I am ready." He was a devoted and beloved 
eon and brother, and a true and generous friend. 



KUFUS BIGELOW LAWRENCE. 

T3UFUS BIGELOW LAWRENCE, son of Hon. Luther 
-*-*' (H. C. 1801) and Lucy (Bigelow) Lawrence, was born 
in Groton, July, 1814. He attended school first at Groton and 
then at Stow, Mass. 

He first entered college with the class of 1833, and his name 
appears on the first two catalogues of that class. He then left 
college, and rejoined it in the class of 1834 at the commence- 
ment of the Junior year. 

He had a handsome person, sweet disposition and pleasant and 
graceful manners. These qualities gained him many friends and 
made him a general favorite. 

After graduation he studied law in his father's office at Lowell, 
and began business there. In 1839 he opened an office in Bos- 
ton. Life seemed to open before him in its most brilliant and 
attractive colors. But, unfortunately, one important element 
was wanting, without which all other advantages are almost use- 
less ; his health soon failed him, and symptoms of consumption 
manifested themselves. He spent two or three years in travel 
in the hope of overcoming these alarming indications of early 
death ; but in vain. He died at Pau, in 1841, being the fourth 
of the class to put off this life and enter another. 



THE CLASS OF 1834. 



EDWARD BRADSTREET. 



THDWARD BRADSTREET, son of Dr. Nathaniel (H. C. 
-*-^ 1795) and Mary (Crombie) Bradstreet, was born in New- 
buryport, Mass., Nov. 10, 1 813, being a direct descendant of Gov. 
Simon Bradstreet. He was prepared for college at the Newbury- 
port High School, and by Hon. George Lunt, then a resident 
of that town. His college life was in every way creditable to 
him. Having lost his father not very long before entering, he 
seemed oppressed by the sense of his loss, and could hardly enter 
with spirit into the lighter occupations of the place. After 
graduation he studied medicine, first with Dr. R. S. Spoflford of 
Newburyport, and afterwards, while at the Medical School in 
Boston, with Dr. H. I. Bowditch of that city. After finishing 
his medical studies, he first practised for a time at Manchester, 
Mass., to fill the place of the physician of that town who was 
disabled by sickness, and afterwards at Beverly, Mass., where 
he established himself, and there married Martha Jane, only 
daughter of Dr. Asa Woodbury of that town. 

After remaining at Beverly several years, failing health com- 
pelled him to seek some place where he would be less exposed 
to the east winds, and he removed to Amesbury, Mass., where 
he established a successful practice. His health, however, en- 
tirely failed, and he died of consumption at Beverly, Dec. 13, 
1844, at the early age of thirty-one. 

He was extravagantly fond of his profession, and wherever 
he went gained always the affection and confidence of all who 
knew him. Had health been granted him, he would have made 
a successful and eminent practitioner. 



ELBRIDGE GERRY CUTLER. 



ELBKIDGE GERRY CUTLER. 

TpLBRIDGE GERRY CUTLER, son of Nathan (Dart- 
-*-** mouth C. 1798) and Hannah (Moore) Cutler, was born 
May 14, 1812, in Farmington, Maine. By the father's side he 
was descended from the Puritan, James Cutler of Watertown, 
who came to Massachusetts in 1634 from Norfolk County, Eng- 
land. By the death of Gen. Lincoln in 1829, his father, at that 
time president of the Senate, became Governor of Maine. 
Elbridge was a boy of a studious and serious disposition, and 
while but a youth joined the Congregational Church of his native 
town. He was prepared for college at the Farmington Academy, 
working during the summer on his father's farm. It is presumed 
that he was poorly prepared in Greek, as the examining Pro- 
fessor, presumably Dr. Popkin, told his father at the time of his 
admission, that " he might at some time have known some Greek, 
but he had worked it all off in the haying season." He was a 
faithful and conscientious student, and lived a pure and upright 
life, in which could plainly be seen the workings of a deeply 
religious nature that looked above for guidance in all the trials 
and temptations of life. He seemed generally under the influence 
of a gentle melancholy which may have been caused by the first 
symptoms and premonitions of the ill-health which caused his 
early death. For two years after leaving college, he studied law 
in the office of his father, and of his brother-in-law, the Hon. 
Robert Gardner, late of Farmington ; but he never contemplated 
the practice of the profession of law. 

The year following he spent at the Theological Seminary at 
Andover, Mass., and the two years thereafter at the Divinity 
School at Yale College, in the pursuit of their respective courses 
of study, and in due course he was ordained as an Orthodox 
Congregational minister. In the year 1842 he was settled over 
the Congregational Church and Society at Belfast, Maine. There 
he ministered for two and a half years, to the edification of the 



8 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

people and with increasing influence and widening reputation, 
until the spring of 1846, when he was prostrated by a lung 
fever. After a partial recovery, in the hope that a change of 
climate would be beneficial to his health, he accepted an invitation 
to preach to the Presbyterian Society at Reading, Penn. He 
had been there a few weeks only and was contemplating making 
it his permanent residence, when he had a relapse of his illness, 
and, on the 28th of April, 1846, died, tenderly cared for in the 
family of Judge Strong, late of the U. S. Supreme Court, whose 
guest he was while he preached in Reading. He was an earnest, 
able and scholarly preacher, and a conscientious, self-sacrificing 
and genial gentleman. 

" None knew him but to love him, 
None named him but to praise." 

In the year 1843 he married Clara Ann, daughter of Jacob 
Abbott, Esq., of Farmington, and sister of Rev. Jacob Abbott, 
the well known author, who still survives him. He had no 
children. 



GEORGE MOORE. 

GEORGE MOORE, son of Abel and Ruth Moore, was born 
in Sudbury, May 4, 1811. He removed to Concord when 
quite young, where he lived until he entered college. His life 
while a student was quiet, manly and industrious, commanding 
the respect of all. His scholarship was good and his habits most 
exemplary. In addition to his class-work he usually had some- 
thing in hand of a remunerative nature as a partial means of 
support. He wrote a magnificent hand, both clerkly and ele- 
gant, an unusual accomplishment for a student, and did a great 
deal of work for Jared Sparks (H. C. 1815), afterwards Presi- 
dent of the University, but then engaged on his life of Washing- 



GEORGE MOORE. 



9 



ton. The large mass of Washington's papers in Mr. Sparks's 
possession required a great deal of sorting, arranging and copy- 
ing, for which work Mr. Moore's careful habits and excellent 
handwriting were eminently adapted. Nor was he the only 
one who did this tr work with Mr. Sparks," on this and kindred 
matters, affording moderate remuneration for several years to 
those who needed and were adapted to it. 

After an honorable graduation, Mr. Moore taught a young 
ladies' school with much success in Plymouth, Mass., for a year, 
and after spending another year in the Harvard Law School, as 
a means of mental discipline and of gaining a knowledge of af- 
fairs, he entered the Divinity School at Cambridge, as had been 
his~intention from the beginning. From this point let his friend, 
fellow-student, and brother in the ministry, Rev. John H. Hey- 
wood, for many years settled at Louisville, Kentucky, take up 
the story of his life. 

" George Moore was graduated at the Harvard Divinity School 
in 1839. A faithful, conscientious student, he had commanded 
the esteem and won the affection of his teachers and fellow-stu- 
dents. He went forth to the work of the ministry with a clear, 
vigorous, well-furnished mind, and with strong desire and resolute 
purpose to render the best service in his power to God and man. 
During the first year after his graduation he preached with great 
acceptance in Templeton, Northampton and other towns in Massa- 
chusetts ; but his heart turned to the West. Late in the autumn 
of 1840 he went to Quincy, Illinois, where on the 1st of Decem- 
ber of that year he became pastor of the Unitarian or " Second Con- 
gregational Church." Quincy, now a flourishing city, was then a 
small town, but very beautiful in its situation upon the banks of 
the Mississippi, with a fine prairie country behind it, and very 
attractive in its cordial, hospitable society, made up, as it was, 
in great measure of earnest, intelligent men and women from 
New England, Kentucky and other parts of the Union. 

" Mr. Moore's congregation was small in numbers, but its mem- 
bers w^ere devoted to their church and always ready to cooperate 
heartily with their pastor in all religious and humane work. 
2 



10 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

Warmly welcoming him on his arrival, respecting him thoroughly 
from the outset, they soon learned to love him, and his and their 
mutual affection became gradually deeper and stronger to the 
day of his death, which occurred from consumption, March 11, 
1847. His ministry, though short, was very useful and he was 
very happy in it. He put his heart into his work. Of calm 
temperament, not very demonstrative, but possessing deep feel- 
ings and strong convictions, governed by principle, not impulse, 
he labored persistently, effectively for his church and Sunday 
school, for general education, for freedom, for all the highest and 
best interests of the community and of humanity. Frank and 
outspoken, his fellow citizens never doubted where he would 
6tand in reference to any great moral cause, and they knew that, 
wherever he stood, he would be firm and true. 

"He loved Quincy. The picturesqueness of its position, its 
commanding outlook, the grandeur of the noble river, the grace- 
ful outlines of the flower-gemmed, rolling prairie constantly 
ministered to his fine appreciation of beauty and sublimity. He 
loved the people and was mightily interested in them ; not only 
in their earnest labors, but also, his sense of the humorous being 
very keen, in the quaintness and eccentricity which characterized 
some members of a community very variously composed and of 
marked individuality. He loved the name which the town bore, 
so dear to all loyal Massachusetts hearts, and he delighted to tell 
visiting friends, his eye twinkling as he told, how the people not 
content with calling the county c Adams ' and the town * Quincy,' 
must call the little park in the town * John.' 

" He was very happy in his surroundings, having his home for 
some years in the f Quincy House,' a hotel admirably kept by a 
large-hearted family from Northborough, Mass., who made it a 
real home to him ; and for the last two years having a home of 
his own, presided over by his devoted and noble sister, Miss 
Harriet Moore, a worthy daughter of Concord. 

" Mr. Moore's life and ministry were early ended. He was but 
thirty-six years old when he died, and his ministry altogether 
covered but eight years ; but life and ministry were so pure in 



WILLIAM SMITH CRUFT. 11 

spirit, so fine and true in character and quality, that their in- 
fluence was wide and pervasive and their memory is as unfading 
as it is fragrant." 



WILLIAM SMITH CRUFT. 

TTTILLIAM SMITH CRUFT, son of Edward and Elizabeth 
* » Storer (Smith) Cruft, was born in Pearl Street, Boston, 
Feb. 17, 1815. His father was an eminent Boston merchant, 
and his mother of the family of President John Adams's wife. 
He entered the Boston Latin School in August 1825, where he 
had the advantage of the instruction of such teachers as B. A. 
Gould, F. P. Leverett and E. S. Dixwell. He was a careful 
and conscientious student, and having finished the full course of 
the school entered college in 1830, well equipped for its duties. 
The same qualities marked his collegiate life that he had shown 
at school. Careful, conscientious and painstaking, he easily 
attained a high rank in his class, and graduated with distinction 
in 1834. In entering upon a college life and in his efforts to pass 
through it honorably, Mr. Cruft was acting more from a strong 
sense of duty than from personal predilection. It was well-known 
to his intimates, both at school and college, that his beau ideal 
was the life of a man of business, of a merchant in the old-fash- 
ioned and fullest sense of the word, for which he had a strong 
longing and eminent natural fitness ; but as his father preferred 
that he should have the best education that the country afforded, 
as a preliminary to a business life, he dutifully seconded the 
parental wishes by his own zealous and persevering efforts. 

After his graduation in 1834 he entered the counting-house of 
R. G. Shaw & Co., among the most eminent merchants of the 
day, to qualify himself for the mercantile profession, where he 
remained till 1836. A mind like his grasped the principles of 



12 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

business almost intuitively, and he was probably as well fitted 
for it as if he had spent seven years of his life in the counting- 
room, in the usual apprenticeship of those days. At the close of 
this year he removed to New York, and formed a copartnership 
with a New York merchant, under the firm name of Newbold & 
Cruft, as general commission merchants — a connection which con- 
tinued until his death dissolved it, having meanwhile sustained the 
highest character for intelligence, correctness and integrity. 

In 1837 Mr. Cruft visited Europe to make his house known 
and establish correspondence, returning in 1838. In 1841 failing 
health drove him again to Europe. He recovered, and on his 
return in 1843 married Miss Fitch, of Norwich, Conn. In 
1844 he was again compelled to seek a milder climate, and went 
first to Madeira and thence to the continent, returning in 1846 
in improved condition. His health, however, failed again, and 
in 1850 he left our shores for Europe never to return, dying at 
Paris, July 16, 1851, aged 36 years. His remains were brought 
home and deposited at Mt. Auburn, August 14, 1851. 

In a notice of him, his pastor, Dr. Bellows, says : "No mer- 
chant of his age had a higher or more enviable place in the com- 
mercial world. His standard as a man of business was of the very 
highest character, and his aim and ambition as lofty as the most 
scrupulous moralist could desire. If Mr. Cruft had enjoyed 
health while engaged in business, or lived even with such health 
as he had through the ordinary period of a business life, we do 
not doubt he would have placed himself on a moral eminence as 
a business man that w T ould have made him a general mark for 
respect and veneration in the business community." 



ROBERT WICKLIFFE. 13 



ROBERT WICKLIFFE. 



T30BERT WICKLIFFE, son of Robert and Margaret 
-*-*' (Howard) WicklifFe, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, 
Dec. 28, 1815. His father was one of the most distinguished 
lawyers of the state, and gave his son all the advantages of a 
liberal education. Robert WicklifFe displayed great intelligence 
and assiduity in 'his studies. He first entered Transylvania Uni- 
versity, where he soon took a prominent position in his classes, 
especially in the classical department, to the studies of which he 
was much devoted. Leaving Transylvania he entered Harvard 
in 1832, at the beginning of the Junior year. He was then a 
young man of lofty stature and fine presence, with fair com- 
plexion, fine features and an eagle eye. He was regular in his 
habits, grave in his manners, and gained the respect of all. 
Though reserved in his disposition his manly and honorable char- 
acter made him popular with his classmates, as one proof of which 
he was chosen captain of the Harvard Washington Corps, a 
military organization of the students then in a very flourishing 
condition. At the time of graduation, his very positive views 
of what duty and honor required of him prevented his taking the 
steps necessary to secure a degree, as was the case with many 
others of the class. 

He returned to Kentucky, studied law, and was admitted to 
the bar in his twenty-first year. For this career he was pecu- 
liarly suited, and in it he was very successful. After about three 
years' practice, Mr. WicklifFe was nominated as a candidate for 
the Legislature by the people of his native county, in which 
Henry Clay resided. Cassius M. Clay was also nominated, and 
a very bitter and exciting canvass ensued, in which Mr. Clay was 
elected by a few votes. Afterwards they were again rival can- 
didates for the next Legislature. The contest became very ex- 
cited, so that Mr. Clay challenged Mr. WicklifFe, though the 
latter was avowedly opposed to duelling. The challenge, how- 



14 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

ever, was accepted, and after three shots the affair was adjusted 
by friends. At the ensuing election Mr. Wickliffe was elected 
over Mr. Clay. Afterwards, he was nominated for Congress 
against the Hon. Garret Davis, but was defeated, as the influence 
of Henry Clay, which was irresistible in the congressional 
districts, was exerted against him. 

In the year 1849 President Tyler offered Mr. Wickliffe the 
position of Minister of the United States to the Kingdom of 
Sardinia, which he accepted. He devoted his leisure while at 
that court to a minute study of the life of Macchiavelli and the 
history of his times, with a view to a work on the subject. This 
was partially completed and was left unfinished at the time of his 
premature death. He also commenced a treatise on Constitu- 
tional Law, founded upon the Constitution of the United States 
in comparison with European governments. 

Mr. Wickliffe returned to America at the commencement of 
the administration of Gen. Taylor. He had become a very ac- 
complished French and Italian scholar, and was particularly well 
versed in Greek literature. He recommenced the practice of 
the law in Lexington with brilliant success. His early manhood 
was auspicious of a distinguished career ; but he fell into ill- 
health, and died in his father's house in Lexington, in 1849, in 
the thirty-fourth year of his age, leaving no children. 

" No man of his day in the State of Kentucky gave greater 
promise of legal distinction and forensic renown than Robert 
Wickliffe. The cast of his mind was composed, severe, and 
noble. He made few attempts to please, and his popularity was 
founded upon clearly defined principles resolutely maintained, 
and not upon the plausible arts usual among political leaders. 
His purposes were clear, and his courage immovable. His 
power over the Democracy preceded that of Breckenridge, and 
fashioned the ideas which Breckenridge afterwards advocated in 
Kentucky until the commencement of the war." 



GEORGE HENRY HASTINGS. 15 



DEAUSIN BALTHAZAR LABRANCHE. 

DRAUSIN BALTHAZAR LABRANCHE was born in 
St. Charles Parish, La., April 12, 1815. He came to 
Massachusetts in July, 1827, and prepared for college at the 
school of William Mills (H. C. 1796) in Cambridge. 

His college life was creditable to him, while his frank and 
manly character and pleasant manners made him a favorite among 
his classmates. After graduation he studied law, and spent the 
rest of his life in his native town, St. Charles, dying Aug. 25, 
1853. 



GEORGE HENRY HASTINGS. 

GEORGE HEXRY HASTINGS, oldest son of Joseph 
Stacy Hastings, was born in Boston, June 17, 1814. He 
entered college from the famous Round-Hill School at North- 
ampton. His earlier college years were not marked by the 
seriousness and self-consecration that characterized the later 
ones. Some of us cannot call to mind without a hearty laugh 
the escapades in which his mirthful nature and lively tempera- 
ment led him to indulge. Having resided for a time at Andover 
he came under influences that worked an entire change in his 
nature, — a case of genuine conversion or consecration of all his 
faculties and activities to the highest earthly objects. He says 
of himself in the class-book that he graduated " with the inten- 
tion of becoming a missionary." Had his health been equal to 
his zeal and devotion, he might have become a second Brainerd 
or Judson. Symptoms of pulmonary consumption soon showed 
themselves ; but he was able for several years to fill the place of 
chaplain to the American Legation at Rome. Finally he was 



16 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

obliged to leave the place on account of the rapid progress of 
his disease, and died at Chattanooga, Tenn., Sept. 2, 1854. 
During his residence at Rome, as well as during his residence 
and travels in the southern states, he was a regular correspondent 
of the New York Commercial Advertiser. 



SAMUEL PAEKMAN. 

SAMUEL PAEKMAN, son of Samuel (H. C. 1810) and 
Mary Bromfield (Mason) Parkman, was born in Boston, 
Jan. 21, 1816. He went through the full preparatory course at 
the Boston Latin School, and also remained for a supplementary 
year on account of his youth. He did not join the class in col- 
lege till 1831, having pursued the studies of the Freshman year 
with D. G. Ingraham (H. C. 1809), an eminent instructor of 
that time. Being thus well prepared for college and possessed 
of talents, ambition and application, he took and maintained a 
fair rank throughout his course. He possessed the elements of 
popularity, having a frank and pleasant address and manners, 
and a fine, manly person. 

At the close of the Senior year he was chosen class secretary, 
which office was no sinecure, owing to the stirring succession of 
unusual events which marked the close of the career of the class 
of 1834, but which it is unnecessary to recall more particularly 
to any member of it. The class-book shows how carefully and 
diligently he recorded all that seemed worthy of record of those 
exciting times. 

No young man started in the race of life with more of the 
elements of success. He had a wide family connection, of great 
influence in financial, social and professional circles, zeal, good 
health and a solid substratum of good sense and good principle. 



SAMUEL PARKMAN. 17 

He commenced the study of medicine, and in addition to the 
usual three years' course, during one of which he was house-sur- 
geon at the Massachusetts General Hospital, spent a year in study 
in Europe, and took his degree of M.D. in 1838. Immediately 
on his return, lie commenced the practice of medicine and sur- 
gery in Boston, giving his attention more particularly to surgery. 
In 1842, in connection with his classmate, Dr. Charles E. Ware, 
he edited the NewEngland Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Sur- 
gery. In the winter of 1844 he received an invitation to deliver 
the course of lectures upon surgery and anatomy in the Medical 
College at Castleton, Vermont, as successor to Dr. McClintock. 
This he accepted ; and he repeated the course the following year ; 
when, finding that the long absence required interfered with his 
professional prospects at home, he relinquished the post. In 
1846, when the Massachusetts General Hospital was enlarged, 
he was appointed one of the new surgeons, and he continued one 
of its most reliable and faithful officers to the close of his life. 

He was an active member of all the medical associations in the 
city for the advancement of science, and contributed many valua- 
ble papers. His position as a surgeon having frequently called 
him into court as a witness or an expert, during the last few 
years of his life he gave much attention to the relations of the pro- 
fession to the law, and wrote two excellent articles upon it : one of 
which, "A Report of a Committee of the Massachusetts Medical 
Society upon suits for Malpractice," was read at the annual meet- 
ing of the Society in 1853, — remarkable for its clearness, can- 
dor and practical wisdom. The year before he died he was 
elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 
and also Recording Secretary of the Massachusetts Medical Society. 
One of his associates in the Society who knew him well, says 
of him in the pages of a medical journal : 

w Of the many prominent men who have been taken from the 
Society by death during the past year (1854), although one of 
the youngest, no one has left a wider vacancy than Dr. Samuel 
Parkman. Always active and interested in the general welfare 
of his profession and in everything that related to it, he felt a 
3 



18 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

special interest in that spirit of progress which requires the 
energy and ambition of youth for its advancement. His fine 
person and manly bearing were but the result and expression of 
his eminently manly character. Accomplished in the science of 
his profession ; candid and cautious in his judgment, and most 
conscientiously faithful to his duty ; kind, disinterested and 
humane, he was a man to be relied upon for his opinions, and 
to be trusted in action. In his social relations he was a faithful, 
warm, and honest friend ; at hand in the hour of trial ; sympa- 
thizing in the hour of joy, and true and frank when a friendly 
and, it might be, an unpleasant truth was to be told. An almost 
morbid hostility to anything like pretension, so as to make him 
uncharitable, perhaps, to so common and venial a weakness, 
was a most marked feature in his character. He always appeared 
less than he was himself, because he feared to claim that which 
he was not. At the hour when he was beginning to become 
more widely known, when he was beginning to exercise the in- 
fluence which sterling merit and well-tried character must always 
exercise, the mysterious hand of Providence has struck him down, 
and the profession is called upon to mourn one of its ablest and 
best friends." 

Dr. Parkman married Mary Eliot, daughter of Edmund 
Dwight, Esq., and left two children, a son and daughter, the 
former of whom, Mr. Henry Parkman, a young lawyer, has al- 
ready made his mark as an able and upright member of our 
municipal government, and active participator in our state poli- 
tics, exhibiting the same uprightness, straight-fordwardness and 
sterling honesty of character which distinguished his father. 






EUGENE FULLER. 19 



WILLIAM PUTNAM EICHAEDSON. 

TTTILLIAM PUTNAM RICHAEDSON, son of William 
^ * P. and Deborah (Lang) Eichardson, was born at Salem, 
Mass., Aug. 15, 1813. He received his entire preliminary 
training in the Grammar and Latin School of his native town* 
and, entering in 1830, passed quietly and respectably through 
college. His habits were careful and exact, and his attention 
to his duties regular and conscientious. After graduation he 
immediately began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. A. 
L. Peirson (H. C. 1812) of Salem, and received the degree of 
M.D. from the Harvard Medical School in 1837. He entered 
upon practice at Salem, where he continued until 1846, when 
he removed to Kendall, Kendall County, Illinois. Here he was 
chiefly engaged in agricultural and horticultural pursuits, for 
which his careful habits, fine taste, and love of natural history 
particularly fitted him. He died at Kendall, March 27, 1857. 
Dr. Eichardson was never married. 



EUGENE FULLEE. 

TpUGENE FULLEE, oldest son of Hon. Timothy (H. C. 
-*-^ 1801) and Margaret (Crane ) Fuller, was born in Cam- 
bridge, Mass., May 14, 1815. His father was a prominent 
figure in the political, as his sister Margaret was in the literary 
life of their times. Eugene received his early education in the 
schools of Cambridge. "At the end of the first term of the 
Sophomore year," as he says in the Class Book, becoming tired 
of college, "I became convinced that nature intended me for a 
merchant. Accordingly I went into a counting-room in Boston, 



20 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

but at the end of a week became convinced that nature intended 
me for no such thing i returned gladly to college at the begin- 
ning of the Junior year, and remained there contentedly till the 
present era" (Graduation). After leaving college Mr. Fuller 
studied law, partly in the law school at Cambridge and partly 
in the office of George F. Farley, Esq. (H. C. 1816), of Can- 
ton, Mass. After his admission to the bar he practised his pro- 
fession two years at Charlestown, Mass. He afterwards went 
to New Orleans, and was connected with the public press of that 
city. He spent several summers there, and two or three years 
before his death was affected by a sunstroke, resulting in a 
softening of the brain, which came very near proving fatal, and 
left him in a shattered condition. His friends hoping that medi- 
cal treatment at the North might benefit him, he embarked with 
an attendant on board the Empire City for New York. When 
one day out, his attendant being prostrated with sea-sickness, 
Mr. Fuller was left alone and was not afterwards seen. He 
must have been lost overboard June 21, 1859. The New 
Orleans Picayune, with which paper he was for sometime con- 
nected, in its issue of June 30th, says of Mr. Fuller : "His in- 
dustry, reliability and intelligence were equalled only by his 
invariably mild, correct, and gentlemanly demeanor, and he was 
liked and respected by all who knew him." Mr. Fuller married 
Mrs. Rotter, a widow lady of New Orleans, originally of Phila- 
delphia. They had five children, three sons and two daughters. 



RUFUS HOSMER. 



-OUFUS HOSMER, son of Hon. Rufus (H. C. 1800) and 
^-v Amelia (Paine) Hosmer, was born in Stow, Mass., July 
16, 1816. By both the paternal and maternal side he was 
sprung from the best colonial and revolutionary stock. He was 



RUFUS IIOSMER. 21 

fitted for college at the academy in Stow. His college life was 
quiet and uneventful, and he received his degree in 1834. 

After leaving college he studied law in his father's office at 
Stow, and attended lectures at the Law School at Cambridge. 
In 1838 he went to Michigan, and soon afterwards was admitted 
to the bar. He began the practice of his profession at Pontiac, 
Michigan, at first in partnership with his cousin, Charles Draper 
(H. C. 1833), and afterwards with the late George Wisner. 
He was very successful, and attained a high rank as a lawyer ; 
but after a few years he relinquished the profession, removed to 
Detroit, and became editor of the Daily Advertiser in that city. 
He held this position about seven years, when, having been ap- 
pointed state printer, it became necessary for him to reside in the 
capital of the state. He accordingly removed to Lansing, 
where he became part owner and editor of the Lansing Adver- 
tiser. Here he remained about three years, and relinquished his 
situation a few days before his death to accept the appointment 
of consul at Frankfort-on-the-Main. While making prepara- 
tions for his departure to his foreign post, he was prostrated by 
an attack of apoplexy, which terminated his life after a few days' 
illness. As an editor, and an agreeable and finished writer, he 
had few superiors ; but it was for his eminent social qualities, 
his keen wit, his ready repartee, and his powers of conversation 
that he was best known and most admired in the various com- 
munities in which he resided. 

He married in 1840 Sarah Chamberlin, daughter of Dr. 
Olmsted Chamberlin of Pontiac, his wife surviving him, as 
did also two daughters and a son. 



22 THE CLASS OF 1834. 



THADDEUS CLAPP. 



rpHADDEUS CLAPP, the second son and third child of 
-*- Capt. William and Elizabeth (Humphreys) Olapp, was born 
in Dorchester, Mass., May 11, 1811. Pie was fitted for college 
at the Academy of Hiram Manley (H. C. 1825) in Dorchester. 
In college he was a grave, dignified and conscientious student, 
always gentle and mild in speech and manners, and faithful in 
every respect. No one profited more, if so much, by the ex- 
cellent instruction of Dr. Beck in the Latin language, some of 
whose methods, then novel in America, had excited much inter- 
est and zeal in that study, through which and his own application 
Mr. Clapp became one of the best Latin scholars of his time. 
He attained a high general rank, and graduated very high in the 
class. Immediately after leaving college he taught a private 
school in Brookline for a short time. He was superintendent 
of the Sunday School of the First Church and Society in Dor- 
chester for about two years from 1836. On the 16th of Feb- 
ruary, 1837, he entered his name with Col. Loammi Baldwin 
of Charlestown, as a student of Engineering; but on account 
of ill-health he did not prosecute his studies. On taking his 
degree of A.M. in 1837, the Latin Valedictory Oration was 
offered him by President Quincy, w T hich, on account of feeble 
health, he could not accept. He was secretary of the Board of 
School Committee in Dorchester several years, and wrote some 
of the annual reports ; among them those for the years 1842 
and 1843, which were printed. In the fall of 1838 he went to 
Franklin, La., where he was for six or seven months a tutor in 
the family of Wm. L. Palfrey, Esq., brother of Rev. J. L. 
Palfrey (H. C. 1815). He returned to Dorchester in 1839. 
No doubt this visit to the south strengthened the anti-slavery 
convictions which his conscientiousness and love of justice had 
Jed him already to feel. About the year 1840 he engaged in 
horticultural and pomological pursuits, which he continued to 



CHARLES HENRY WHEELWRIGHT. 23 

follow during his life. He became quite celebrated among fruit 
growers for his theoretical and practical knowledge, and obtained 
man j premiums for fine samples of choice varieties of fruit, and 
became a member of the Mass. Horticultural and Norfolk Agri- 
cultural Societies. He was of a most amiable disposition, and 
led a life of the most conscientious and unspotted integrity. 
Feeble health alone prevented his occupying more conspicuous 
positions in the world's estimation. He died July 10, 1861. 
He married in Claremont, N. H., August, 1857, Mary H. Dus- 
tin, daughter of Rev. Caleb Dustin, and a descendant of Hannah 
Dustin, so celebrated in the early history of New Hampshire, 
who survives him. 



CHARLES HENRY WHEELWRIGHT. 

/CHARLES HENRY WHEELWRIGHT, son of Lot and 

^-^ Susannah (Wilson) Wheelwright, w T as born in Purchase 
Street, Boston, May 29, 1814. At the age of ten years he 
spent a year at the Round-Hill School at Northampton, and 
some time subsequently at Mr. Greene's Academy at Jamaica 
Plain. His health being delicate, he completed his preparation 
as a pupil of Hon. Jonathan Chapman (H. C. 1825), travelling 
at intervals to improve his bodily condition, and entering the 
Sophomore class in 1831. He subsequently was obliged to 
obtain a year's leave of absence for the same reason, spending 
it mostly at the South. His genial disposition and frank and 
pleasant manners made him a general favorite among those who 
knew him. In his Senior year he was adjutant of the Harvard 
Washington Corps, the military organization of the day. 
For the same reasons that influenced others of his classmates he 
did not take his degree at the close of his Senior year, and, being- 
absent from the country most of his subsequent life, never ap- 



24 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

plied for it ; but at the request of his classmates, it was conferred 
upon him in 1875, thirteen years after his death. He studied 
medicine in the office of Dr. Geo. C. Shattuck, of Boston, and 
received the degree of M.D. in 1837. 

Having decided to enter the navy, he offered himself for 
examination at Philadelphia, passed the third on the list, and 
was commissioned assistant surgeon in 1839. He was ap- 
pointed to the sloop of war Marion in 1843 ; to the receiving- 
ship Ohio and frigate Independence of the home squadron 
in 1845. He was next appointed to the Naval Hospital at 
Pensacola, a very unhealthy position, of great labor and 
responsibility. After very arduous services during the prevalence 
of malarial fever, he was taken ill of it himself, came very near 
dying, and was never in firm health afterwards. He joined the 
Mediterranean squadron in 1848, and in 1850 was ordered to 
California by way of the Isthmus. In 1852 he went with the 
Powhatan on the Japanese expedition, and was promoted to a 
full surgeoncy on the Plymouth in 1860 and 1861. He did duty 
at the Brooklyn navy yard, and on the Board of Examining 
Surgeons, a place at that time of great labor and responsibility. 

Not aware of his own feebleness he applied for more active ser- 
vice, and was appointed to the San Jacinto, March 9th, and 
ordered to Hampton Roads to take part in the expected sea-fight, 
after which his friends never saw him a^ain. He missed orders to 
go North in the Colorado by forty-eight hours. Had he received 
them he would have been saved from another summer in the 
Gulf, which in his feeble health he dreaded. 

Orders came to him to take charge of the Naval Hospital at 
Pilotstown, at the S. W. pass of the Mississippi, a most arduous 
position, where without proper appliances or necessary assistance 
he had to struggle with sickness and death in the most appalling 
forms. Worn down by incessant work, he wrote in a prophetic 
spirit, but with unabated courage : " I have been here a week, have 
only one assistant, and am weak from want of sleep and diarrhoea. 
There is no way to get relief from my situation. I shall do my 
duty to the end." 



AARON HAYDEN. 25 

He died July 30, 1862, a true martyr to his duty and his 
country, of whom as their only representative in the active ser- 
vice of the war of the rebellion his classmates may be proud. 



GIDEON FORRESTER BARSTOW. 

GIDEON FORRESTER BARSTOW, son of Dr. Gideon 
and Nancy (Forrester) Barstow, was born in Salem, Dec. 
23, 1815. 

He received his preparatory education at the Salem Latin 
School, and joined the class at the beginning of the Sophomore 
year in 1831. Immediately upon graduation he commenced the 
study of medicine, which he practised first in New York and 
subsequently in Salem. Relinquishing this profession he became 
a civil engineer, working upon railroads in northern Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut. Marrying Miss Mary Cogswell, a 
physician's daughter in Connecticut, he resumed the practice of 
medicine in that state. During the war of the rebellion sur- 
geon-general Dale, of Massachusetts, appointed him to a post 
in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, where he died suddenly June 
5, 1864, leaving a widow and one son. 



AARON HAYDEN. 

A ARON HAYDEN, son of Aaron and Ruth (Jones) Hay- 
-*-*- den, was born at Eastport, Maine, Sept. 23, 1814. 

He attended school at Washington Academy, East Machias, 
Me., and finished his preparation for college at South Reading 
Academy. His college life was quiet and uneventful. He at- 
4 



26 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

tended strictly to the objects for which he came to college, and 
had the respect of all who knew him. 

After graduating in 1834, he pursued his studies for three years 
at the Cambridge Law School. He was admitted to the bar in 
1838, and commenced the practice of law in his native town of 
Eastport, to which he was fondly attached, and where he content- 
edly spent his life, though his talents and acquisitions would have 
adorned a wider sphere. In each of the years, 1844 and 1845, he 
was elected to the House of Representatives of his native state, 
and, in 1856, he was a member of the State Senate. In these 
public positions he distinguished himself as a dignified and wisely 
practical legislator, and an effective debater. His political 
sentiments were moderate, conservative and national. When, 
at a later period of his life, the existence of the national govern- 
ment was imperilled, he ardently embraced the cause of the 
constitution and the Union, and zealously labored with his voice 
and pen for their maintenance and preservation. 

Mr. Hayden was interested from early years in religious sub- 
jects, and the extent and variety of his theological inquiries were 
remarkable. Though educated in the religious tenets of his 
family, he took nothing upon trust, but with conscientious in- 
dependence following his own investigations to their natural re- 
sults, on the 30th of November, 1864, he received confirmation 
as a member of the Episcopal church. 

Months before his departure, struck down by a sudden and 
well nigh instantaneously fatal stroke of apoplexy, he rallied but 
partially from the attack. Loving life, yet not fearing death, 
he resisted its progress with heroic firmness, and performed his 
duties with entire steadiness, until at last, forced to yield to its 
irresistible power, he calmly, peacefully and hopefully met his 
fate on the 22d of October', 1866. 

Mr. Hayden married Miss Jane Briggs, of Robbinston, Me., 
June 10, 1847, and left one son, Aaron Hayden, Esq., now 
also of Robbinston. 



ZEBINA MONTAGU GLEASON. 27 



MILES TEEL GAEDNEE. 

IV /TILES TEEL GAEDNEE, son of Miles and Lydia 
JAlL (Xeel) Gardner, was born at West Cambridge, Mass., 
Jan. 31, 1808. 

After graduation he became a teacher, and taught with much 
success at various places, among them Arlington and Dedham, 
Mass. He then became interested in business as a dealer in 
school books at Eochester, N. Y., and, subsequently, in seeds 
and agricultural implements at Detroit, Michigan. 

He was succeeding fairly in this business when he was attacked 
by consumption, and died in 1867. 

Honesty of purpose and fidelity in action were his special 
characteristics, and he always commanded the esteem and respect 
of those among whom he lived. 



ZEBINA MONTAGU GLEASON. 

yEBINA MONTAGU GLEASON, son of Elijah and Lucy 
^ (Eay) Gleason, was born in Westborough, Mass., Dec. 10, 
1810. 

His health, always delicate, rendered him unable to work upon 
his father's farm, as most farmers' sons at that time were expected 
to do, and he early showed a love for reading and study. After 
attending the district and select schools in his native town, he 
was sent to Amherst Academy, and thence to Leicester, where 
he was prepared for Harvard. 

After graduating he began the study of law with Samuel B. 
Walcott (H. C. 1819) , of Hopkinton, Mass. Fletcher "Webster 
(H. C. 1833) was his fellow student. In 1836 he went to Troy, 



28 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

N. Y., where he continued his legal studies with George N. 
Titus, Esq. of that city, and the following year was admitted to 
the New York bar. While in Troy he was much interested in 
politics, wrote many articles for the press, and engaged in fre- 
quent and animated discussions on the political questions of the 
day. In 1838 he was licensed to practise as Attorney at Law, 
in the courts of Illinois, having been admitted to the bar in that 
state. The following year he returned to Westborough, and was 
married to Miss Mary L. Harrington of that town, May, 1839. 
She died Oct. 7, 1841, leaving no children. Subsequently Mr. 
Gleason taught a select school for many years in his native town , 
and on June 10th, 1847, was again married to Miss Caroline B. 
Clarke, of Framingham. 

By the death of his father in 1850, he became almost by neces- 
sity, as well as by inclination, a farmer, and was an enterprising, 
intelligent, and progressive leader in agricultural pursuits. Al- 
though residing in the village, he took great pride and pleasure 
in owning and successfully cultivating the "homestead farm," 
which had been in possession of his family for four generations. 
His interest in the schools of the town was lifelong, and during 
his official connection with them he endeavored to raise their 
standard and awaken in every scholar a desire to attain a degree 
of excellence that would fit him for useful activity in life. 

Mr. Gleason died of carditis Aug. 18, 1868. He left six child- 
ren, of whom two graduated at Harvard University in the class of 
'71 and '78, respectively. One who knew him well says : " Mr. 
Gleason possessed strong traits of character, of which genuineness 
was a leading one. He despised all shams, and. although natu- 
rally very reserved, had great self-reliance. He arrived at his 
conclusions after long and patient thought, and, once formed, he 
required proof positive to change his opinion. His domestic at- 
tachments were peculiarly strong, and he ever showed himself a 
kind and affectionate husband and father." 



SAMUEL CONANT FOSTER. 29 



LUCIUS PARKER. 



LUCIUS PARKER, son of Rev. Jeroboam Parker (H. C. 
1797), was born in Southborough, Mass., Sept. 3, 1807. 

Mr. Parker first entered college with the class of 1833, but 
leaving sometime during the Freshman year, reentered with that 
of 1834. Being a mature man at the time of entrance and strongly 
under the influence of religious principle and feeling, his college 
life was marked by dignity, gravity and strict attention to study. 
Such men are an advantage to any college class, as they in some 
measure balance the immaturity and light-headedness of the major- 
ity, and do good by quiet example. As an expression of this 
feeling of respect and confidence it is recorded in the Class-Book, 
March 11, 1834, that Mr. Parker was chosen Chaplain for the 
Class Day exercises, and on Class Day it is recorded that "the 
meeting was opened by prayer from the Chaplain, Mr. Parker." 

Entering the ministry after graduation, Mr. Parker identified 
himself with the Methodist persuasion, in which he rose to be a 
Bishop, officiating in Wisconsin and other north-western states. 

He was twice married, and died in 1868, having been a faith- 
ful and lifelong worker in the Christian vineyard. 



SAMUEL CONANT FOSTER. 

SAMUEL CONANT FOSTER, son of Dr. Andrew (H. C. 
1800) and Mary (Conant) Foster, was born Oct. 24, 1817, 
at Jamaica Plain, Mass. 

He made his preparation for college at the well-known school 
of Charles W. Greene (H. C. 1802) at Jamaica Plain, and 
entered at the early age of thirteen, being less than a year younger 



30 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

than Warren, the most youthful member of the class. On his 
graduation in 1834, he commenced the study of medicine in the 
office of Dr. Winslow Lewis, of Boston, and received the degree 
of M.D. at the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in 1837, 
when he was but twenty years old. He then went abroad, studied 
in London and Paris, and spent six months in the Dublin Lying- 
in Hospital. After nearly three years' absence, he returned home 
and began practice in New York in 1839. He became, in a 
short time, one of the Physicians to the New York Dispensary, 
and in 1852 was appoined one of the Visiting Physicians to 
Bellevue Hospital, which post he held for nearly six years, doing 
faithful duty and being always respected for his skill. He held 
numerous places of honor in the profession. He was Vice Presi- 
dent of the Academy of Medicine, Secretary and afterwards 
Vice President of the New York Society for the Relief of the 
Widows and Orphans of Medical Men, and was an active mem- 
ber of several other learned societies. 

In 1857 he married Mary B., daughter of Mr. Theodore P. 
Bogert, of New York, by whom he had five children, four of whom 
survived him. 

In 1859 severe attacks of pleuritis and sciatica forced him to 
give up business almost entirely for three or four years ; and 
when partial recovery enabled him to resume practice, he gradually 
reestablished himself; but just as he had obtained an enviable 
place in his profession, tuberculosis manifested itself and he was 
obliged to break off again. 

The rest of his life was a pursuit after health, with brief inter- 
vals of professional practice. He visited Colorado, made a voy- 
age in a sailing vessel, visiting Cadiz, Marseilles and Paris, and 
finally, as a last resort, removed his family to Nassau, New 
Providence. Here he was able to cheer the sick and do some- 
thing to relieve the sufferings of many who were, like himself, 
seeking health in a foreign land. He calmly watched the prog- 
ress of his disease, and died most peacefully on the 18th of April, 
1873, in the full possession of his faculties, and conscious to the 
last. 



TURNER SARGENT. 31 

The memorial from which the above facts are mostly taken 
says of him : "Dr. Foster was a man of clear and vigorous intel- 
lect, nurtured in the best schools of literature and medicine, and 
ripened by large experience in hospital and private practice. He 
was a rare scholar, calm, judicious, logical, and just. 

" His family relations were of the most tender and loving. 
He was a good citizen, eminently patriotic, and his dealings with 
all men were marked by the strictest integrity. 

"His contributions to medical literature were not many, but 
of superior excellence. Everything that came from his pen 
showed care and elegance. Critical over his own writings, he 
was prompt to detect the least departure from good taste in others. 

"As a medical practitioner he was calmly thoughtful, taking 
great pains in the investigation of his cases, attentive to his 
patients, and doing his duty conscientiously. 

"His opinions were valued by the profession, and he brought 
forward to enforce them a full storehouse of knowledge, gathered 
from careful study and from his own private experience." 

Among his writings on medical subjects may be mentioned 
his essay on "Atelectasis of the Lungs in Young Infants," and 
his paper on " Mammary Abscesses." Besides these is his paper 
" On Phenomena observed in a case of Epilepsy," and his most 
finished production, his Oration before the New York Academy 
of Medicine. 



TURNER SARGENT. 

rpURNER SARGENT, son of Henry and Hannah (Welles) 
~L Sargent, was born in Dorchester, Mass., August 11, 1813. 
His preparation for college was made chiefly at the Boston 
Latin School, being interrupted from time to time by the deli- 
cacy of his health, an obstacle with which he had to contend 
through life. He entered at the beginning of the second term 



32 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

of the Sophomore year, early in January, 1832. Like others 
of the class he did not take his degree at the close of the course, 
but received it in 1835. Much of Mr. Sargent's life was spent 
in travelling and in foreign countries ; but though he gained 
somewhat in vigor towards middle life, he never undertook con- 
tinuous or professional labor. Having a refined taste and sympa- 
thetic and generous heart, he was able to benefit the community 
in many ways in his position as a private gentleman of means 
and leisure, by the exercise of those qualities. Such men are 
highly useful in a community where the high pressure activity 
of business life does not spare many men for the important ser- 
vices tending to refine, improve, and elevate. In this connection 
it seems fitting to introduce a letter growing out of a conver- 
sation with a mutual friend, the pastor of the First Church in 
Boston, where Mr. Sargent had long attended. 



106 Marlborough Street, 
March 22, 1884. 
Dear Mr. Cushing: 

You asked me about your classmate and my parishioner, 
Mr. Turner Sargent, who is no more with us. I was glad to be so in- 
quired of. For as the minister of the First Church, and in my per- 
sonal relations to that gentleman, I owe him a debt which it is pleasant 
to acknowledge. He was a member of the Standing Committee of 
that Church when I was installed as its pastor, and, save with such in- 
terruptions as were necessary on account of his frequent absences from 
the country, or were caused by the severe illnesses of his last years, 
he was diligent in the discharge of the duties of that trust, and sin- 
gularly and most usefully so during the very trying transition and 
transplanting of the congregation from Chauncy to Marlborough St. 
He was of the utmost service in planning and building the new house 
of worship, and in guiding to satisfactory issues the changes in the 
forms of service, which were then proposed and carried into effect. 
Mr. Sargent was a man of deep, tender, and genuine religious sensi- 
bilities, and eager to recover much which is precious in this way, but 
had been inevitably dropped for the time by an over anxious Puritan- 
ism. He well understood that our so-called congregational worship is 
extremely objective and too much dependent on the moods of the 
officiating minister, and not sufficiently expressive of Christian con- 
sciousness in acts of common prayer. He was a churchly man, in the 
best sense of that word, very broad and receptive of new forms of truth ; 



THOMAS DONALDSON. 33 

but also careful of the old Christian treasure, and more engaged to fulfil 
than to destroy. We of the First Church owe much to his generosity 
— his gifts of time, money, counsel, honorable methods in the business 
affairs of the Church, the spirit of a high-toned man of affairs applied 
(as it so often fails to be) to Christian institutions. Quietly, in his 
own way, he came into the open communion of the congregation. He 
loved the house of God as the place concerning which He had said, 
" My name shall be there." He always helped me all that he honestly 
could. He was patient, considerate, charitable in his judgments, and 
whilst he cherished his own religious convictions he had a kind side for 
much which he could accept only in part. The Church will always 
point with delight and pride to the Sargent window memorial of his 
father in his eyes, but in our eyes of him as well, and a witness to his 
appreciation of the mystic element in our Divine Faith. I shall be 
glad in any record which you have to make of him to be numbered 
with the remnant of elders still lingering in First Church among Mr. 
Sargent's warm friends. 

Yours in pleasant remembrance of past years, 

EUFUS ELLIS. 

Mr. Sargent was twice married, but left no children. 

His health gradually declined, and he died Feb. 24, 1877. 



THOMAS DONALDSON. 

rnHOMAS DONALDSON, the oldest son of John Johnston 
and Caroline (Dorsey) Donaldson, was born in Baltimore, 
May 8th, 1815. His ancestors on both sides were of Irish ex- 
traction, and had been conspicuous and patriotic citizens of their 
adopted country. 

At about the age of ten years he was sent to Round-Hill 
School, at Northampton, where he remained for five years, en- 
tering the Freshman class at Harvard in April, 1831. Here 
his fine natural abilities and good preliminary training enabled 
him to take high rank as a scholar, while his sweet disposition 
and gentle and conciliatory manners made him a general favorite 
5 



34 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

among his classmates and acquaintances. It is hardly necessary 
to recall to any member of the class of 1834 the circumstances 
under which we parted at the close of our Senior year, involving 
the suspension of their degrees to several of high standing both 
as students and gentlemen. These were subsequently given to 
all who applied for them. Mr. Donaldson never applied for 
his ;* but in 1851 it was voluntarily conferred on him by the 
college, which, like an honorary degree, may be considered a 
tribute to his character and position. This is mentioned as it 
may not be generally known, and shows the softening influence 
of time in the views of governing bodies. 

After leaving Harvard, he began the study of the law in 
Baltimore; but his health failing, he began the active duties of 
life as a civil engineer, and was employed in the construction of 
various railroads. During this period, in the year 1838, he 
married his cousin, Elizabeth Pickering Dorsey, of Boston, 
granddaughter of Col. Timothy Pickering, of Massachusetts. 
Eleven children were born of this marriage, nine of whom and 
their mother and seven grandchildren survived him. 

When his health was sufficiently reestablished, he commenced 
the more congenial study of the law, and came to the bar in 
1843. About this time he purchased some acres of land in a 
high and picturesque tract called Elkridge, eight miles from 
Baltimore. In this place, which he called Edgewood, he built a 
comfortable house, which it was his pleasure to adorn with all 
that endears a home, and where he resided the rest of his life. 

In the years 1847 and 1848 he served as a member of the 
House of Delegates of Maryland, filling the difficult and im- 
portant position of Chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
Means. Maryland had become a defaulting State, and for some 
years had ceased to pay interest on her debt. This state of 
things was intolerable to the upright and honorable mind of Mr. 
Donaldson, and he devoted himself to the removal of this stain 
upon the honor of his native State. He was unwearied in his 

* As stated in a Memorial Sketch of him published in Baltimore in 1851. 






THOMAS DONALDSON. 35 

efforts to effect the prompt restoration of the public credit, and 
had the satisfaction in 1847 to see Maryland place herself, 
through her legislature, on the list of solvent States, to which 
result no one had contributed more than himself. Mr. Donaldson 
also took an active and useful part in the Constitutional Conven- 
tion called in 1850 to make a new constitution for the State of 
Maryland. 

When the war of secession broke out, the position of the citi- 
zens of Maryland was difficult in the extreme ; but Mr. Donald- 
son was always a steady and conscientious upholder of the cause 
of the Union, though he never allowed his patriotic feelings to 
alienate his personal friendships. In Howard County where he 
resided, and where he was the recognized leader of the bar, he 
was surrounded by loving and anxious friends and neighbors. 

In the winter of 1876-7 his health began seriously to fail, 
the malady proving to be Bright's disease. He was advised to 
try the effect of a warmer and drier climate, and accordingly he 
went in the following spring, accompanied by his wife, to Aiken, 
S. C, and afterwards to Charleston. The change brought tem- 
porary relief, but he returned home not essentially benefited. 
Understanding his own condition, he set to work diligently to 
put his affairs in order, especially those in which he was con- 
cerned as trustee ; but he was not able to resume his professional 
practice. On the 20th of July, 1877, he was struck by paraly- 
sis, and died on the 4th of October. 

The tribute paid to the deceased by the Hon. Chief Justice 
Brown, of Baltimore, will convey an accurate estimate of his 
professional standing : 

" Profoundly read in law, he added to knowledge soundness 
of judgment and great skill in the trial of causes. His ready 
and retentive memory carried all the points arid facts of a long 
and intricate case from the beginning to the close. His mind 
was both minute and comprehensive. His presentation of the 
law in the papers which he drew was singularly clear, exact and 
exhaustive. His examination and cross-examination of witnesses 
were conducted with marked ability, and, when the testimony 



36 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

was closed, his side of the cause was presented to the jury with 
persuasive and forcible eloquence, making him always a formi- 
dable opponent. 

" Nor did he at any time neglect, during a life of unusual toil 
and many cares, the broader culture which none need so much 
as men of engrossing professional pursuits. He was a ripe and 
graceful scholar, and illustrated in his fine and graceful elocution 
his thorough familiarity with the best literature of the English 
tongue. It is no wonder, therefore, that the public respect for 
his abilities and the universal confidence reposed in him were 
warmed by feelings of admiration and affection. Among his 
professional brethren his popularity was unqualified. In private 
and social life no one could be more universally esteemed, for 
no one could be more faithful than he to all its duties and in all 
its relations , more true as a friend or more delightful as a com- 
panion. Those who knew him. best were those who loved him 
most, for only they could know with what sufferings and trials 
it was his fate to struggle, or with how much of manly and 
Christian fortitude and courage he rose above them all." 



EDWAED FOX. 



TpDWAED FOX, son of John and Lucy Jones (Oxnard) 
-^ Fox, was born in Portland, Me., June 10, 1815. He re- 
ceived his ©arty training in the public schools of his native city. 
After graduating from the High School he was sent to Phillips 
Academy, Exeter, N. H., where he finished his preparation for 
college, and entered in 1830. He was a successful student, 
graduating with honor in 1834. Entering as a boy, he grew 
literally in every direction, recording of himself in the class 
book, that he increased in height fifteen inches during his col- 
lege course. He immediately entered the Harvard Law School, 



EDWARD FOX. 37 

where he spent three years, and received the degree of LL.B. 
He was admitted to the Cumberland County bar, and began 
practice with R. A. L. Codman, Esq., under the firm name of 
Codman & Fox, which partnership lasted till 1848 or 1849. 
He married a daughter of Nathan Winslow, of Portland, for 
his first wife. For the benefit of her health he removed to Cin- 
cinnati, where he practised his profession part of a year. After 
her death he returned to Portland, and was soon after elected 
City Solicitor, and discharged the duties of this office with credit 
to himself and the profession. 

While he was City Solicitor he was elected County Attorney, 
and in 1862 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of 
the State of Maine. He resigned this office soon after, and en- 
tered into partnership with his brother Frederic, under the firm 
name of E. & F. Fox. In 1866 he was appointed to succeed 
Judge Ware as District Judge of the U. S. Court, which im- 
portant position he held till his death. 

It will thus be seen that Mr. Fox's life illustrates the succes- 
sive steps of the successful lawyer, and the esteem and confidence 
of his fellow citizens and the general government. 

His second wife, who survives him, was Mrs. Fessenden, her 
maiden name being Trask. His first wife left two children, a 
son and a daughter. The son, Edward Winslow Fox, became 
a member of the Cumberland bar, and gave high promise of 
eminence in his profession. His health was poor, and in com- 
pany with his father he took a journey to the South. He died 
at Savannah in 1877, and his father returned with the dead body 
of his son. It is thought that Judge Fox never fully recovered 
from the shock caused by the death of his son. 

Judge Fox was one of the most prominent and successful law- 
yers in Maine, and, while in the practice of his profession, he 
carried on an immense business. He successfully brought to 
an issue many very important cases, which will be remembered 
by the older members of the bar and citizens of Portland. 

Though he always took a keen interest in public affairs and 
was fitted for any position in the gift of his fellow-citizens, the 



38 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

judge held himself aloof from all political discussions and party 
movements. He never tried to gain the good will of any party 
or individual except by plain straight-forward dealing. His 
stern integrity, uncompromising love of justice and antique sim- 
plicity, with his grand and massive presence, made him almost 
the ideal judge. 



JAMES TILGHMA1ST EARLE. 

JAMES TILGHMAN EARLE, son of R. T. and Mary 
^ (Tilghman) Earle, was born in Centreville, Queen Anne's 
County, Maryland, July 13, 1814. His father was for many 
years the chief judge of the Judicial District, composed of 
Queen Anne's, Cecil, Kent and Talbot Counties. He was for 
many years conspicuous in the politics of Maryland. His ad- 
vent into political life was as a Democrat, in the hazardous cam- 
paign of 1864, when he was elected to the Senate of Maryland, 
where he remained five consecutive terms, serving nearly all 
that time as Chairman of the Finance Committee. During the 
session of 1872 he brought forward the Chesapeake and Dela- 
ware Ship Canal project. 

He was also largely identified with the agricultural interests 
and practical education of farmers in Maryland. It was very 
largely through him that steps were taken for the endowment 
with public lands of the Maryland Agricultural College. He 
was also at one time president of the Maryland Agricultural 
Society. 

He died at his residence in Centreville, July 15, 1882, of 
general prostration, resulting from malaria. 



RUFUS TILDEN KING. 39 



RUFUS TILDEN KING. 

EUFUS TILDEN KING, son of Major Rogers and Mary 
(Tilden) King, was born in West Medford, Mass., May 
21 , 1807 . He was prepared for college at the Academy in Stow, 
Mass., and entered for the first time in 1829. He remained in 
this class (that of 1833) for two years, holding a high rank 
among men so eminent for scholarship as many of its members 
subsequently became. He was the room-mate, for a part of the 
time at least, of Fletcher Webster, and through him became 
well acquainted with Daniel Webster, who strongly encouraged 
him to study the law, considering that his mind was well adapted 
to that profession. His health failing, he was obliged to leave 
college for a year, and when he returned, though strongly urged 
by President Quincy to rejoin his own class, he entered the next 
one, thus graduating in 1834. After graduating he began the 
study of the law in the office of Hon. Luther Lawrence of Lowell 
(H. C. 1801) ; but, his health continuing delicate, he was 
obliged to abandon his preparation for the bar. Soon after he 
went to Yarmouth, N. S., where he held the position of princi- 
pal of Yarmouth Academy for some time. After the death of his 
first wife, Emeline E. Stone, of Framingham, in 1845, he taught 
for several years in the well known private school of Charles 
W. Greene (H. C. 1802) at Jamaica Plain. While there he 
married Miss Chloe W. Smith. He next went to New York, 
where he met with marked success in classical teaching. The 
latter years of his life Mr. Kiug spent in Fernandina, Florida, 
where he devoted his time to the cultivation of oranges, rather 
as a means of improving his health than as a source of profit. 
He died while on a visit to Boston, July 3, 1883. 

A cotemporary notice speaks of him as follows : " A man 
of great intellect, a close and accurate scholar, an affectionate 
son, husband and brother, ever making friends and never losing 
them, feeling a strong interest in all matters of religion and 
philanthropy, his death will cast a deep shadow over all with 
whom his long life has been so pleasantly connected." 






NOTICES OF THE SURVIVORS 



&i 



* 

i 



•01 , 



NOTICES OF THE SURVIVORS. 



WILLIAM LEROY ANNIN. 



o 

fav<. 



1 classmate modestly introduces his Autobiography with 
quotation, with some small changes, from one of his 
ite classics. 



" C ^ctus assiduis tuis vocibus, Cushing, qnam quotidiana mea 
recus mo non difficultatis excusationem sed inertiae videretur depreca- 
tions habere, dimcillimam rem suscepi. Hanc vitam utinam qui 
legei. i eire possint quam invitus susceperim scribendam, quo facilius 
care? stultitiae atque arrogantiee crimine qui me mediis interposuerim 
Han li-anorum scriptis." 

I s born in Le Roy, Genesee County, N. Y., July 28, 
lc" he eldest of the seven children of Joseph and Melinda 
("W ) Annin, my birth being coeval with the organization of 
my ive town. After attending various public and private 
scb , I finished my preparation for college at the new school 
on jl pie Hill, Geneseo, recently opened by Messrs. Cleave- 
land, Felton and Sweetser, recent graduates of Harvard. After 
spending two years here I opened a small private school in Le 
Roy, continuing my studies till, in the fall of 1831, I joined the 
Sophomore class at Harvard, and graduated in 1834. While in 
college I taught private pupils and also public schools in the 
towns of Canton and Shrewsbury, Mass. After graduation I 
taught, sometimes as principal and sometimes as assistant, in 



44 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

both public and private schools and academies, in the towns of 
Le Roy, N. Y., Cambridge, Mass., in Boston, at the High 
School at Jamaica Plain, in Mr. Charles W. Greene's School, 
at Watertown and Concord, Mass., and at various places in 
New York, for longer or shorter terms ; and for many years 
have had private pupils at the same time. 

I was also employed as surveyor on the lines of the Lexing- 
ton and Old Colony Railroads, and in the distribution of the 
Commonwealth newspaper in anti-slavery times. 

In 1852 I returned to Le Roy, my native place, where I have 
since resided, doing more or less private teaching, lecturing oc- 
casionally, and assisting in the management of my brother's 
reading-room. More recently my time has been partly occupied 
in horticultural and agricultural pursuits. 

Never inclined to rest in scepticism, baptized in babyhood in 
the Presbyterian faith, and in youth confirmed in the Episcopal 
Church, at one time I became a member of the Congregational 
Church in Le Roy, which may now be said to have disbanded, 
since most of the members have gone to far better homes than 
they had here. At Harvard, however, I attended the Chapel 
services, where we then had those good preachers, Henry Ware, 
Jr. and Dr. Palfrey. 

In my Junior year, in company with my classmate, Felton, 
I made a pedestrian tour to the White Mountains, made the 
ascent of Mt. Washington, stood upon the top of Red Mountain, 
and got quite a general idea of the scenery of three of the New 
England States. 

Listening and reading rather than talking or writing seem to 
have been my characteristic ; but partial deafness has now 
changed all that. Once I was advanced in French and German ; 
but I was obliged partly to give up the modern languages for 
the classic authors. Some modern historians have drawn largely 
upon my time, and I am not so much troubled as formerly with 
historic doubts. I think, perhaps, I owe something to the for- 
cible illustration of the " Higher Law," presented in the anti- 
slavery discussions before the civil war. I hope I am patriotic, 



KINSMAN ATKINSON. 45 

and I mean to be a good citizen. And let me ask, historically 
following the march of our nation with her long line of martyrs 
and heroes, in what age of the world fuller of great thoughts 
and great deeds could one have lived than in that between 1812 
and 1876? 



KINSMAN ATKINSON. 

/~\UR respected classmate sends the following interesting and 
^^ typical account of the life and struggles of a New England 
boy in the early part of the present century. 

I was born in Buxton, Maine, then part of Massachusetts, 
Oct. 16, 1807, being one of the twelve children of John and 
Olive (Haley) Atkinson. 

As a sort of premonition of my future profession, my elder 
brothers and their playmates nicknamed me " Elder " or " Old 
Elder," and setting me on a box or chair required me to 'preach 
for their amusement. 

When I was about five years old, the war of 1812 broke out, 
and my eldest brother enlisted as a privateer, was taken and im- 
prisoned in Halifax. He was exchanged just in time to prevent 
his being sent to England. To prevent his going to sea and to 
furnish work for his large family, my father exchanged his smaller 
farm in Buxton for two hundred acres of land in Eaton, N. H. 
My eldest brother was to have one hundred acres for a farm, 
and he immediately commenced felling the trees and clearing 
it up. 

There was no meeting-house nor settled minister in the town. 
The school district in which we lived was large in territory. 
The school-house was on a high hill, about two miles distant, 
where a school was kept about two or three months in summer and 
the same in winter. At an early age I was sent to this school 



46 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

in summer, then taught by Miss Delia Danforth. The seats 
were long benches, without supports for the back. The girls 
sat on one end, the boys on the other. Once I happened to be 
sitting nearest the girls, of whom I manifested a shyness. Miss 
Danforth told me to sit nearer ; I hitched an inch or two ; that 
did not satisfy her ; so she made me hitch again and again for 
her amusement. I have no recollection of going to more than 
one summer school ; as soon as I could be of use on the farm 
my school privileges were limited to the winter. 

When twelve years of age, I thought it time to look out for 
myself, as my father had neither the means to educate me nor 
to give me a settlement when of age. Therefore, I agreed to 
live with my brother-in-law till of age, for one hundred and fifty 
dollars. He purchased one hundred acres of an almost unbroken 
forest of large extent, the haunt of bears and other wild animals, 
and gave me my choice between this lot of land and one hundred 
and fifty dollars if I lived with him till twenty-one years of age. 

At fifteen, however, I left him, and went to live with my own 
brother, then married, and subsequently was obliged to work a 
year or two gratis for my father as a minor. My school privi- 
leges while with my brother amounted to almost nothing ; but I 
was brought more into contact with the world. At eighteen 
years of age I began to work for myself on small pay. I ex- 
pended my wages for books, clothing, and nine weeks' schooling 
at Fryeburg Academy. 

In the fall of 1826, being almost nineteen years of age, I 
left Eaton and all my relations, in a stage coach, with all my 
effects in a wooden trunk, which I carried on my shoulder from 
one hotel to another, to go to New Hampton Academy, only 
twenty-five miles distant. As the stage did not pass through 
New Hampton, I was accidentally carried beyond it, and when 
I reached the town of Atkinson, finding an Academy there, I 
determined to become a member of it. Here I found kind 
friends, and had much interesting experience, especially in re- 
gard to my spiritual affairs, which resulted in my making a public 
profession of religion before the church and society of the town, 



HENRY BLANCHARD. 47 

feeling irresistibly impelled to offer a broken but excited prayer 
between the close of the services and the benediction, much to 
the surprise of the clergyman and the congregation. The effect 
was indescribable. Some wept aloud. The Holy Spirit seemed 
to fall on the meeting. The effect on me was that I had the 
witness of the Spirit to my conversion. 

Afterwards, I went to Andover, fitted for college, and entered 
Bowdoin in 1831. In 1833 I came to Cambridge, graduating 
in 1834. I studied Theology at Andover, and was ordained a 
Congregational minister in 1838. I joined the Methodist Con- 
ference in 1843, of which I am now a member. 

During my preparatory, college and professional studies, I 
taught nine different schools to defray expenses. I preached four 
years in the Congregational churches of Mendon and Washing- 
ton, and subsequently in the Methodist churches of Belchertown, 
Winchendon, Princeton, Weston, Farnumville, Topsfield, Ded- 
ham, Ludlow, and Hubbardstown. I married in 1838 Dorothy 
Myrick Woods, niece of Rev. Leonard Woods, of Andover, 
and have had ten children, five of whom are living. 



HENRY BLANCHARD. 

r I ^HE subject of this notice, son of Joseph and Sarah (Brown) 
-*- Blanchard, was born in Billerica, Mass., Sept. 25, 1811. 
His father was a farmer, and one of a large family of French 
origin, who settled in various parts of New England and New 
York. His maternal grandfather, Benjamin Brown, of Tewks- 
bury, Mass., was a deputy to the first Continental Congress, and 
an officer in the war of the Revolution. 

He remained at home till near the age of seventeen, assisting 
in such light work as was suitable to his age, attending district 
schools and such private schools as the town afforded ; he was 
also sent to the Billerica Academy for several terms, where he 



48 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

began the study of Latin and Greek with a view to a collegiate 
education. About August 1, 1828, he was placed in Phillips 
Academy, Andover, to commence in earnest his preparation for 
college. 

His father died soon after he left the paternal roof. He was 
then for the first time called to realize that he had got to depend 
on his own efforts in his onward way in life. He found himself 
left with the very inconsiderable patrimony of eight hundred and 
fifty dollars, with which to make preparation for college, to sup- 
port himself while there and while studying a profession. After 
two years' stay at Andover he entered Harvard, being the only 
one of a class of twenty to enter that college, the rest going to 
various other colleges which were under Orthodox influences. 
His father's family all entertained liberal or Unitarian views of 
Christian belief. At the academy he stood alone in his inherited 
faith. A very large proportion of all the members of the school 
belonged to the different evangelical churches and their aim was 
the ministry. He was, of course, subject to a strong pressure of 
Orthodox influence, and at an age when a young man is supposed 
to be somewhat impressible. Instead of yielding quietly to the 
forces brought to bear against him, he was moved to an earnest 
effort to stand his ground and hold the fort against all assaults. 
It cost him somewhat of a struggle, yet it is doubtful if he regret- 
ted the ordeal to which he was subjected. 

Little is to be said about his college life and success. The 
two impediments to a more complete realization of what college 
life ought to be and of the anticipations he had entertained, were 
his narrow pecuniary circumstances and a constitutional diffidence. 
As he looks back to those seemingly far off days and sadly calls 
to mind the difficulties under which he labored from over-sensitive- 
ness and too much distrust of himself, he can imagine how 
nearly equivalent is plenty of assurance and self-confidence to 
the actual possession of those facilities which wealth affords. 

His stinted means having been hinted at, it may be proper to 
allude to some of the ways adopted to supply deficiencies. As 
to beneficiary aid, besides the lack of studiousness and brilliancy 



HENRY BLANCHARD. 



49 



of scholarship, his modesty was an obstacle to his success in ob- 
taining much from that source. 

As was the custom fifty years ago more than at present, under- 
graduates availed themselves of the long winter vacation to teach 
in country district schools. This he did in two successive 
winters. During two summer vacations he was employed by 
Dr. Thaddeus W. Harris to assist him in various ways in the 
College Library. During ten weeks of summer of the Junior 
year, including the vacation, he was employed at Derry, N. H., 
to assist Master Hildreth of the Pinkerton Academy in preparing 
a class of boys for entrance to college. 

One summer vacation only was in any degree devoted to re- 
creation. This was partially spent in the country at the paternal 
homestead. Thus it will appear that college life afforded him 
but little pastime. 

Of incidents in college life personal to himself, few, if any, 
were enough out of the ordinary routine to call for mention. It 
may, however, be proper to allude to the fact that each student 
is likely in the course of his career to manifest a taste or prefer- 
ence for some special branch of study, and will gain a corres- 
ponding proficiency in it. This was his case. Of the ancient 
languages his leaning was very decidedly to the Greek ; accord- 
ingly his proficiency in that language was fairly commendable. 
This was fortunate, as he was called upon to teach it much of 
the time for the three years after graduating. The more he 
taught and studied it, the more he came to appreciate its rich- 
ness, expressiveness, and beauty. Of the modern languages his 
partiality was for the German. It is not unlikely that his love 
of this language was intensified by his reverential regard for that 
great, good and learned man, Dr. Follen, his teacher. 

To those of his classmates whom he well knew, he formed an 
attachment; to none did he ever feel an antipathy. This class 
attachment continues, as well as a thorough loyalty to all the 
class traditions. 

Of tender recollections may be mentioned one incident. When 
he was settling his last college bills he found a deficiency in his 
7 



50 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

immediately available funds . The circumstance somehow reached 
the ear of a classmate, " stat nominis umbra ," who hastened to 
proffer the loan of more than was required. The accommodation 
was no more gratefully received than cheerfully offered. It has 
been a pleasure to him to know that this kindly impulse only 
foreshadowed a record of generous deeds, which he doubts not 
"have blessed not less him who gave than those who received." 

Fifty years ago he left Alma Mater with some regrets for time 
misemployed, yet with a conscience tolerably clear. His first 
essay was, in compliance with the request of one of his tutors, 
to go to the eastern shore of Maryland to take charge of a private 
school. This was not with a very ambitious aim from a pecuni- 
ary standpoint, but the year there passed was a very enjoyable 
one. He had an opportunity to view slavery, — not in its most 
hideous phases, — but he saw enough of its atrocities to enlist his 
sympathies in the movement, then in its early stages, which 
culminated in the civil war and its final overthrow. 

Eeturning from the south at the end of a year, he at once 
accepted a position which was in waiting for him, viz. , the charge 
of the Academy at Hallo well, Me. Here he also spent one year, 
with better financial results than the preceding. He had mentally 
decided to prepare himself for the practice of medicine, and felt 
that it was time to make a beginning. Feeling the need of more 
means in furtherance of his aim, at the request of citizens of his 
native town he then opened a private school, and also began his 
medical studies under the direction of Dr. Zadock Howe, then 
the most eminent physician and surgeon in Middlesex County. 
Passing one year in this way, he went to Boston and entered the 
office of the late George B. Doane, with whom he remained two 
years, meanwhile attending all the required lectures, hospital 
clinics, &c, and received his degree of M.D. in the spring of 
1840. 

Here again his impecuniousness influenced him to his disad- 
vantage. It did not require strong solicitation to induce him to 
accept an invitation to settle in a somewhat remote country town, 
Marshfield, Mass., where he had little difficulty in entering upon 



HENRY BLANCHARD. 51 

a tolerably extensive, if not profitable, practice. During his 
residence here of about twenty years his patrons, in their good 
will, bestowed on him such offices as were not incompatible with 
his professional duties. He served much of the time on the 
School Committee, and in 1858 was elected to represent the dis- 
trict in the Legislature. 

He married, June 6, 1841, Sarah C. Farmer, daughter of 
Jeremiah Farmer, of Billerica, and a direct descendant of Edward 
Farmer, who came to New England about the year 1670, and 
settled in Billerica. She is still living, as are also his two sons 
and two daughters. 

In 1861, thinking his children had need of greater educational 
and social advantages than were attainable in Marshfield, he re- 
moved to Dorchester. He also hoped by the change to be en- 
abled to look better after the welfare of those dependent upon 
him, as well as to make provision for his own later years. By 
the change, as compared with his former field of service, his 
labors and responsibilities have been lightened, his intercourse 
with his professional brethren has been more frequent and of 
wider extent, as well as more pleasant and profitable. 

Such is a brief review of the career of one who for more 
than fifty years has conscientiously given himself to the duty 
before him ; and though marked by no brilliant results, and un- 
attended by any specially noteworthy events, he trusts it can 
scarcely be regarded as an idle or wholly useless life. That 
more should have been achieved, he admits. There must be 
humble workers as well as brilliant organizers. 

In conclusion he cheerfully acknowledges that, in spite of 
adverse circumstances and embarrassments, in the retrospect he 
is fully conscious of an experience of many of the so-called 
blessings of life. 



52 THE CLASS OF 1834. 



EDWARD DARLEY BOIT. 

f I ^HE compiler has received the following interesting statement 
-*- from our classmate, under date of 

Newport, March 7, 1884. 

My father's name was John Boit. He was born in Boston 
in 1769, and, with a short interval, went to sea all his life. He 
was chief officer of the ship Columbia when she gave her name 
to the great river of that name, and I have been told that when 
in command of a boat searching for water, was actually the first 
to discover and enter it. 

In 1794 he sailed from Newport in the sloop Union, of ninety- 
five tons, on a voyage round the world. He went out round 
Cape Horn, and returned by the Cape of Good Hope, reaching 
Boston in rather less than two years. His journal says, " she 
was probably the first sloop that ever circumnavigated the 
globe," and I believe we may add, " she was the last ! " He died 
in 1828. 

My mother's maiden name was Ellen M. Jones, of Newport. 
When a girl she knew Malbone, the celebrated painter, and we 
have a miniature of her done by him on ivory, and she is said 
also to be represented as the " Present " in his picture of the 
"Present, Past, and Future." She died in 1830. 

I have had five sisters and one brother, all dead except my 
youngest sister, who married Russell Sturgis, of London, where 
they now live. 

I was born in Boston, Aug. 31, 1813. I entered the fourth 
class at the Boston Latin School in 1825, and remained there 
until 1828, when, on the death of my father, I was taken from 
school and put into a store. The next year, however, I resumed 
my studies, was admitted to Harvard College in 1830, and staid 
the four years. After leaving college I worked on the survey 
of Boston Harbor, then being made by Col. Loammi Baldwin. 



EDWARD DARLEY BOIT. 53 



In the spring of 1836 I made a voyage to Java and Calcutta, 
and arrived home about the end of the year. The commercial 
crisis of 1837 prevented another voyage, and, after a time, I be- 
came treasurer's clerk of a corporation in State Street. 

In February, 1838, I was engaged to Miss Jane P. Hubbard, 
daughter of the late John Hubbard, of Boston, and we were 
married June 13, 1839. After my marriage I ran a paper mill, 
and subsequently entered the Dane Law School at Cambridge, 
where I went through the usual course of study. I completed 
my studies in the office of C. P. & B. R. Curtis, in Boston, and 
on my admission to the bar became their junior partner. 

In 1848 I removed with my family to Jamaica Plain, where 
we lived several years. While there I represented West Rox- 
bury, of which Jamaica Plain formed a part, for two years in 
the Massachusetts Legislature. About 1854 I partially agreed 
with a lawyer in Chicago to join him as a conveyancer there. I 
worked on the details for nearly a year ; then abandoned the 
project, and sold out my interest in the books to my intended 
partner. 

Still later I retired from the law, and was made treasurer of 
the Newton Mills, a cotton factory near Boston. About 1860, 
in connection with a capitalist, I superintended the building of 
the Oriental Mills, another cotton factory, near Providence, 
R. I., of which, when completed, I became treasurer. We 
subsequently built the Oriental Point Works, ten miles from 
Providence, and I was made treasurer of them also. 

In 1868 I resigned these positions, and established a cotton 
commission at Savannah, Ga. ; but the enterprise was not suc- 
cessful, and in 1875 I returned to Boston, and have not engaged 
in active business since. During our residence in Savannah, 
Mrs. Boit and I made two trips to Europe. We visited Eng- 
land, Scotland, France and Italy, but did not make a general 
tour of the continent. We came back from our last visit in 
1875, and settled at Newport, where we now live. We have 
had six children, three boys and three girls. Of these, the 
youngest died in infancy, and in 1875, while abroad, we lost 



54 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

our eldest daughter, Elizabeth Greene, widow of Joseph H. 
Patten, of Providence (who died a few months before her), and 
their deaths constitute the one great sorrow of an otherwise al- 
most uninterrupted domestic happiness of forty-six years. Our 
surviving daughter, Jane H., is now Mrs. Arthur Hunnewell, 
of Boston. 

Our eldest son, Edward D., graduated from Harvard in 
1863. He was admitted to the bar, but did not practise. In 
1864 he married Miss L. M. Cushing, of Watertown. He is 
an artist, and has lived abroad many years, where he now is. 

Our second son, Robert A., graduated in 1868. He went 
with us to Savannah, and there married Miss Georgie Mercer, 
who has since deceased, leaving two little girls. He is engaged 
in the insurance business in Boston. Our youngest son, John, 
is an architect, and lives with us at Newport. 

As for myself, in theology I am a Unitarian ; in politics a 
conservative Democrat, and an advocate of civil service reform 
and free trade. I am also a total abstainer from the use of 
alcohol and tobacco. 

I begin what some one calls " the march along the melancholy 
line of the Seventies," strong in faith and hope, and expecting 
to die firm in the conviction that " Life is indeed worth living." 



HENRY BURROUGHS. 

TTENRY BURROUGHS, the only child of Henry and 
-■ — *- Catherine (Greene) Burroughs, was born in Boston, April 
18, 1815. His mother died when he was two years old, and 
his home during his childhood and youth was at the family man- 
sion in Hollis Street, covering with its garden the site now called 
Burroughs Place. 

From 1823 to 1830 he was a scholar in the celebrated academy 
of Mr. Charles W. Greene (H. C. 1802), at Jamaica Plain, 



HENRY BURROUGHS. 55 

where he was prepared for Harvard College, entering in 1830 
at the age of fifteen. After leaving college he devoted a year to 
general study in Boston, and in 1835 entered the General Theo- 
logical Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the city 
of New York. Having completed the course of study in that 
institution and received the usual testimonials, he was ordained 
Deacon by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Griswold, Bishop of the Eastern 
Diocese, in Trinity Church, Boston, on the 15th of July, 1838. 
He soon afterwards entered upon the charge of St. Paul's Church, 
Camden, Trinity Church, Moorestown, and St. Mary's Church, 
Colestown, New Jersey. He was married in Trinity Church, 
Boston, December 18, 1838, to Miss Sarah Tilden, daughter of 
the late William Tilden, and granddaughter of Captain George 
lnman of the British army. He was admitted to the priesthood 
by the Rt. Rev. George W. Doane, Bishop of New Jersey, in 
St. Mary's Church, Burlington, N. J., May 29, 1839. After 
a residence of five years at Camden, he removed to Massachu- 
setts, and became rector of St. John's Church in the beautiful 
village of Northampton, where he lived from 1843 to 1852. He 
then removed to Boston with his family, and resided twenty-nine 
years, during all which time he was engaged in the duties of the 
ministry. After officiating in St. Paul's Church, Brookline, for 
a few months, he had the temporary charge of Grace Church, 
Providence, R. I., in 1853 and 1854. In 1855 and 1856 he 
acted as assistant minister in St. John's Church, Portsmouth, 
N. H., during the illness of his uncle, the Rev. Charles Bur- 
roughs, D.D. He then assumed the pastoral care of St. Mary's 
Church, Newton Lower Falls, which he held for about two years. 
From 1860 to 1868, he was rector of Christ Church, Quincy, 
and in October, 1868, he became Rector of Christ Church, 
Boston, which office he held till July, 1881, when he sailed for 
England, and was absent till December, 1883. 

On the 28th of December, 1873, he delivered an address, 
which was afterwards published, on the one hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of the opening of Christ Church, the oldest house of 
worship in Boston ; and on the 18th of April, 1875, he held in 



56 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

the church a service commemorating the hanging out of Paul 
Eevere's signal lanterns from the tower of Christ Church on the 
night before the battle of Lexington. He served fourteen years 
on the School Committee of the city of Boston, and was for ten 
years the Chairman of the Committee on the Girls' High and 
Normal School. He was for several years Secretary of the 
Standing Committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts from 1873 
to 1881, the Boston Episcopal Charitable Society from 1855 to 
1871, the Widows' and Orphans' Society from 1865 to 1881, 
and of other institutions. He has also for ten years held the 
position of Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Massachusetts. 
The degree of S.T.D. was conferred upon him by Trinity Col- 
lege, Hartford, in 1876. 

His oldest son, Major George Burroughs, graduated at West 
Point in 1862, and received two brevets for meritorious services 
as an officer of the Corps of Engineers during the war of the 
rebellion. He died while on duty in the harbor of Charleston, 
S. C, January 22, 1870. 

His second son, Henry, died on the 9th of October, 1882, at 
Southsea, England. 

His only daughter, Catharine, was married to Dr. Luther 
Parks, of Boston, and is now residing in Europe. 



JAMES FREEMAN COLMAN. 

By Mr. Colman's request, all notice of him is omitted, 



BENJAMIN EDDY COTTING. 57 



BENJAMIN EDDY COTTING. 

rriffl.S sketch of the life of our classmate is taken mainly from 
-■- the Biographical Encyclopaedia of Massachusetts. — T. C. 

Benjamin Eddy Cotting, son of William and Sarah (Eddy) 
Cotting, was born in West Cambridge, now Arlington, Mass., 
November 2, 1812. 

In early life young Cotting's inclinations were for the mili- 
tary service, and his education was of the special character re- 
quired to fit him for the National Military Academy. Before 
the design could be consummated, other considerations interfered, 
and the purpose was abandoned. After studying in his native 
town he entered Harvard University without conditions in 1830. 
There he received some of the highest testimonials to the excel- 
lence of his scholarship in the exhibition appointments of his 
class, and graduated with honors in 1834. 

In the third year of his college course he undertook the 
temporary charge of an academy at North Andover, and bore 
with tact and success the inevitable trials of temper and abilities 
that usually attend a first essay at teaching. After receiving his 
diploma he deliberately chose the healing art as the calling to 
which his energies should be devoted. He studied at the Har- 
vard Medical School, which then enjoyed the teachings of pro- 
fessors so eminent in the profession, as Warren, Jackson, 
Bigelow, Hayward, and Ware," and took his degree in 1837. 

School instruction was supplemented by service as interne 
at the County House of Industry, — an institution then affording 
special and highly appreciated opportunities for clinical obser- 
vation. Many discomforts accompanied his labors there. The 
officers of the establishment showed slight consideration for 
medical assistants. But his zeal and persistent thirst for know- 
ledge overcame official prejudices, and bore him triumphantly 
through. 



58 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

Dr. (Jotting remained for a while in Boston, supplementing 
his work as a physician by giving instruction in the classics and 
mathematics, in which he was a proficient. Twenty-five physi- 
cians, of whom he was the last comer, then occupied Winter 
Street, in the heart of the city. One after the other, all were 
driven out by the onward advance of trade, and sought residences 
in other parts of the city or neighborhood. Acting under the 
advice of judicious medical friends, in 1843 he removed to Rox- 
bury, then an independent township. There he speedily achieved 
surprising and exceptional success. Physicians and citizens 
were familiarized with his unusual surgical aptitude. Quick to 
seize and patient to improve the fitting opportunity, successful 
management of critical surgical cases spread abroad his fame 
through all that neighborhood. Up to recent years he performed 
most of the unusual as well as ordinary surgical operations in 
Roxbury and vicinity. Reputation widened as experience in- 
creased, and won for him the position he now holds on the con- 
sulting staff of the Boston City Hospital. He had previously 
several times declined the office of attending surgeon at the 
Hospital. 

In the public affairs of Roxbury, Dr. Cotting exhibited keen 
and abiding interest so long as it remained an independent muni- 
cipality. As one of the trustees of the Roxbury Latin School 
for many years, he gave much attention to its management. He 
resisted the prevailing tendency to extravagance in expensive 
schoolhouses ; and with another trustee he planned and erected 
an inexpensive building, the only one in the neighborhood that 
cost less than the appropriations, and one which still remains 
unsurpassed in completeness for the purposes intended. For 
eight years he served as physician to the Roxbury Almshouse ; — 
a connection which afforded exceptional opportunities for medi- 
cal observation. More than two thousand cases came under his 
notice in that institution alone. A first class hospital rarely 
offers to an individual practitioner a larger number or a greater 
pathological diversity within a similar period. 

In 1837 Dr. Cotting was admitted to the fellowship of the 






BENJAMIN EDDY COTTING. 59 

Massachusetts Medical Society, and has since manifested an 
earnest and consistent devotion to its interests and purposes. 
Never passive or indifferent, but always active and vigorous in 
relation to that institution and to the medical profession as a 
whole, he has labored with diligence unexcelled by any of his 
compeers, to raise and to maintain a high standard of professional 
morality and discipline in his ancestral state. Whether as officer 
of the Society or as private member of its ranks, by word, act, 
and influence, he has evinced the truest appreciation of the 
regular medical profession of Massachusetts. 

Nor has the profession failed to recognize his personal merit 
and the value of his professional services. In 1853 he was 
selected to represent the Norfolk District in the Council of the 
Massachusetts Medical Society. With the single exception of 
the year 1865, in which he was absent from the country, he has 
ever since been one of the Councillors, and has wielded poten- 
tial influence in shaping the policy and perfecting the organiza- 
tion of the Society. In 1855 he was chosen Recording Secretary, 
and in 1857 Corresponding Secretary of that institution. To 
the latter office he was reelected annually until 1865, in which 
year he was chosen to deliver the annual discourse. That duty 
was accomplished in a manner that still lives in the memory of 
those who heard the address. In 1872 he was elected Vice- 
President. In that position Dr. Cotting created so favorable an 
opinion by his enterprise and wisdom in fostering the interests 
of the Society, that its members departed from the usage estab- 
lished by half a century of precedents, and made him President 
in 1874. So effective did his administration prove, that the 
Society has since dated its new departure on a career of har- 
monious prosperity and efficient work from that epoch. The 
debt of the association was liquidated. New life was infused 
into the various district societies by the periodical visitation of 
the President, — an innovation of his own initiation ; the social 
needs of the profession were provided for, and a special fund* 

* Dr. Cotting has given to the Massachusetts Medical Society a fund of 
$2,000, the income of which is devoted to providing a lunch for the Councillors 
at each of their stated meetings, annually, for which, no doubt, his name will 
be held in grateful remembrance. — T. C. 



60 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

was created by his liberality for the continuance of that pro- 
vision. Generous gifts of money for prizes and other purposes, 
personal activity in important special and standing committees, 
unabated interest in all matters of whatever magnitude, affecting 
the honor and welfare of his medical brethren in Massachusetts, 
richly entitle him to their gratitude and respect. 

Outside the State society, Dr. Cotting's affiliations with medi- 
cal and scientific bodies are quite numerous. He is a Fellow 
and also a Councillor of the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences ; an honorary member of the Connecticut and of the 
New Hampshire State Medical Societies ; a corresponding mem- 
ber of the Royal Medical Society of Athens, Greece,* and of 
the Academia de' Quiriti at Rome. 

The Obstetrical Society of Boston, the Norfolk District Society, 
and the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, owe much to 
his zeal and labor in founding and maintaining them. 

When, in 1843, his friend Dr. Jeffries Wyman retired from 
the office of Curator of the Lowell Institute in Boston, Dr. Cot- 
ting became his successor. Sound judgment and ready tact, to- 
gether with the expenditure of much time, are demanded by its 
duties. The promptitude and fulness with which the requisition 
has been satisfied have been largely compensated by the intimate 
relation it involves with many eminent scientists and scholars. 
Acquaintance thus began with Agassiz, Guyot, Lyell and 
others, — acquaintance which ripened into valued and permanent 
friendship. 

The activity of Dr. Cotting's life is apparent in this neces- 
sarily brief biographic sketch. It would not admit of elegant 
leisure. Extensive and engrossing practice afforded no res- 
pite. Only by breaking away from ever increasing local 
engagements could he obtain an occasional rest. . In 1848 he 
visited Europe, and witnessed some of the stirring scenes con- 
nected with the deposition of Louis Phillippe and the promulgation 
of the French Republic. Again, in 1860, he made an extended 
European tour, in which Constantinople and the city of Athens 

* Ho replied to the Royal Medical Society of Athens, in Greek, accepting the 
membership which had been bestowed upon him by vote of the Society, show- 
ing that the teachings of his Alma Mater had fallen on good soil. — T. C. 



BENJAMIN EDDY COTTING. 01 

were included. Again, in 1865, he crossed the Atlantic for 
the purpose of recreation in travel. The immediate need of the 
last trip was occasioned by his exposure to unfavorable climatic 
influences while an efficient member of Prof. Agassiz's exploring 
expedition to Brazil. Physical disturbances peculiar to the 
tropics, and from the effects of which he has never fully recov- 
ered, compelled him to leave the distinguished company some- 
what sooner than he intended, and to seek a more genial climate. 
While in Brazil he was introduced to the enlightened and patri- 
otic Emperor, Dom Pedro, and thus began an acquaintance 
which his Majesty spontaneously renewed during his recent visit 
to the United States. 

In addition to frequent contributions to periodical medical 
literature, Dr. Cotting has written three more formal productions 
on medical topics. The first is an address entitled "Nature in 
Disease," which was delivered in May, 1832 ; the second, an 
address entitled "Disease, a part of the Plan of Creation," deliv- 
ered in 1865, at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Med- 
ical Society, which attracted great attention. The more liberal 
of medical thinkers received it cordially, although it has not es- 
caped criticism of a less friendly nature. In 1866 it received 
the compliment of translation and publication in the French lan- 
o'liao-e in Paris. The last of the addresses referred to was deliv- 
ered in May, 1872, under the title of "My First Question as 
a Medical Student — its Solution a sure Basis for Rational Thera- 
peutics." 

Each of these essays is a plea for rational medical science and 
procedure ; each is a protest against perturbation — against empiri- 
cal and unnecessary medication. All were republished by the 
author in 1875, in a small volume bearing the title of "Medical 
Addresses for gratuitous distribution, especially to the Fellows 
of the Massachusetts Medical Society." 

Dr. Cotting married, Oct. 5, 1843, at Brooklyn, N. Y., Miss 
Catharine Greene Saver, born at Dedham, Mass., of New Eng- 
land origin. Accompanying him on a journey to California, she 
died of painless pneumonia, April 29, 1881, in a railroad-car, 



62 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

as the train was nearing the " 1,000 mile tree " in Utah Terri- 
tory, with prairie flowers in her hand, while uttering the words 
" beautiful, grand," as her eyes caught sight of the snow-covered 
summits of Pike's Peak ; a circumstance which excited the deep 
sympathy of the many friends of herself and husband. She 
left no children. 

Dr. Cotting has always felt great interest in everything 
pertaining to the class of 1834, which he has shown in many 
substantial ways. 



THOMAS CUSHING. 

~"| FAYING tried in vain to get a notice of myself written by 
-* — ■- another hand, I propose to do it with the freedom and 
frankness which I have enjoined with some degree of success 
upon others, as being the proper thing among classmates. 

I was born in Bulfinch Place, Boston, April 10, 1814, being 
the oldest son of Thomas and Eliza Constantia (AYatson) Cush- 
ing. AYhen I say that I am the ninth in descent on both sides 
from Plymouth pilgrims, I think I need not go any farther back 
in regard to my ancestors. When I was four years old, mer- 
cantile vicissitudes compelled a change from the liberal and 
pleasant surroundings in which I was born to a comparatively 
humbler residence in the neighboring rural village of Dorchester, 
where I learned something of country life as well as sufficient 
book knowledge in the schools of the town to enable me to enter 
the Public Latin School at the age of ten years, when I had 
again become an inhabitant of Boston. 

The Latin School, during my five years of attendance, was 
in a very high state of efficiency and popularity under B. A. 
Gould (H. C. 1814) and F. P. Leverett (H. C. 1821) as 
principals, and E. S. Dixwell (H. C. 1827) as sub-master,* and 

* Subsequently principal, 1S36-1S<51. 



THOMAS CUSHIXG. A3 

several ijentlemen as teachers, who afterwards became distin- 
guished in their various professions. It embraced nearly all 
the boys in the city who were aiming at an extended or university 
education, about two hundred and fifty in number, with just as 
much distinction of class and means as it is wholesome for boys 
to be brought up under. And here let me record my happy and 
satisfactory recollections of the years that I passed at this school. 
Everything is fixed in my memory in the brightest and rosiest 
colors. My teachers were eminently gentlemen and scholars, 
my associates agreeable to me, the discipline strict but not cruel, 
the short and decisive methods of which were never applied to 
me without the consciousness, on my part, that they were richly 
deserved, and that they cleared the score for me for the time being, 
leaving no sting to break my sleep or interrupt my play. My 
country training and sturdy frame enabled my right hand to 
keep my head and maintain my rights out of doors, a somewhat 
necessary accomplishment in those days. The long school year 
and school days, equivalent to nearly double in amount of school 
hours to the present ever-shrinking allowance, enabled us to do 
our work without hurrying or undue pressure, and, in fact, to do 
much more than was necessary to enter college, which, again, 
was by no means so little as is sometimes assumed now-a-days. 
For its purpose and in its day, I do not hesitate to say, having 
some knowledge of schools, that the Latin School at that time 
was of almost ideal excellence, and that I gained there what 
was of inestimable advantage to me in my college course and 
future pursuits. 

The fame of the thorough and elegant scholarship of Robert 
C. Winthrop and George S. Hillard was still alive in the school, 
and among my schoolmates were Charles Sumner, Lothrop 
Motley, James Freeman Clarke, William M. Evarts, Wendell 
Phillips, Henry W. Torrey, and many others who have obtained 
distinction in life and shown that the school was building upon 
a sure foundation of classical and mathematical culture. 

I had such confidence also in my teachers that I felt that what- 
ever they said was right and whatever they required was possible, 



G4 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

and therefore to be done without hesitation or grumbling. This 
was strikingly exemplified by the readiness with which I under- 
took the writing of a so-called Greek poem for my graduating 
exercise, at rather short notice. Though I had never written a 
line of Greek or made a Greek letter except for amusement, I 
never thought of pleading inability, but by diligent plying of 
Lexicon and Gradus, early and late, during the hot mid-August 
days, in due time I turned out the required forty lines, which 
could be scanned, and I flattered myself had the true Homeric 
ring to them. I have thus always had the pleasure of looking 
back upon the school portion of my life, which to many is not 
an agreeable subject of reflection, with feelings of unalloyed 
pleasure and happiness. As illustrating this, I find on the blank 
leaf of my well-thumbed old Greek grammar, under date of Aug. 
20, 1829:— 

" My last day at Latin School. 
Sorry to leave it." 

Not much poetry or sentiment in this, but a boy's downright 
expression of an honest conviction. 

After quitting school in 1829, the "res angusta do?ni" made 
my prospect of a more extended education rather misty ; but 
just at the time when it was necessary for me to take some step 
as to my future support, my fate was fixed and my life-work 
settled by a casual meeting with another of my teachers, whose 
memory I can never sufficiently honor, Mr. Gideon F. Thayer, 
whose intermediate school I had attended, as was quite the cus- 
tom in those days, at the noon hours, for instruction in some of 
the English branches not taught in the Latin School. Mr. 
Thayer finding my course undecided, proposed to me to com- 
mence the work of teaching in its simplest elements, as an ap- 
prentice to the business, in the new private institution, Chauncy- 
Ilall School, which he had just founded in Boston, and where 
there was plenty of work for every capacity. He offered me 
also the opportunity to continue my studies in any of the de- 
partments of the school. This offer I was glad to accept, and 
in September, 1829, I began my work, little thinking that I 



THOMAS CUSHING. 65 

was to carry it on in the same institution, with a comparatively 
short intermission, for just half a century. 

The hope of a collegiate education was not entirely abandoned, 
and my studies were mostly turned in that direction, in the hope 
of some day rejoining my old Latin-School classmates by enter- 
ing a year or more in advance. This hope was sufficiently strong 
to induce me at the age of sixteen to supplement a long day's 
work in the school, of seven hours at least, with so much study 
in the early morning or late evening as enabled me, though 
without a teacher, to keep up with the class that entered Har- 
vard in 1830, until the door was unexpectedly opened for me to 
join it in the January of 1832, by the kind offices of one who 
made it her pleasure to assist those striving to obtain a collegiate 
education. My habits of early study and power of long and 
continuous labor, with perfect health and a thorough preparation, 
made college work seem very light to me, and I was able to do 
considerable towards my own support by giving private instruc- 
tion and assisting Mr. Sparks in arranging and copying the 
Washington manuscripts for the press ; and all this without 
neglecting my own studies or cutting myself off from the athletic 
and social pleasures of college life, which I enjoyed like one long 
holiday, though I voluntarily practised what seem in the retro- 
spect severe economies, and always graduated my expenditures 
by my means. 

I think myself and classmates to have been fortunate in having 
been members of the college just when we were. The recent 
accession of Mr. Quincy to the presidency had given a whole- 
some stir and impulse to the institution as a whole, while the 
classical and modern language departments had received a de- 
cided advance from such eminent scholars as Drs. Beck and 
Follen. The rhetorical department, as administered by Dr. 
Edward T. Channing, was at the height of its usefulness. The 
studies pursued with him were the most interesting part of my 
work, and I can never be sufficiently thankful for the very liberal 
allowance of work demanded of us, and the pains that he took 
to ground us in the writing of correct English and in forming 



66 . THE CLASS OF 1834. 

some idea of proper style and expression. If, as I have under- 
stood, this department is now less prominent and less work is 
done in it, the more's the pity. 

I took much pleasure also in the exercises of the Harvard 
Washington Corps, then in a very flourishing condition, and was 
happy to fill several of the humbler positions, requiring con- 
siderable labor and responsibility, though not conspicuous in the 
eyes of our fair friends on Exhibition Days. 

The athletic exercises of the students were on a pleasant and 
comfortable footing. They were not made a business of, nor 
entrusted to nines or elevens. Anybody could participate in 
football, cricket, etc., as then played, who had a reasonable 
modicum of strength and hardihood, and large numbers did so 
at their leisure moments, much to their own advantage. Swim- 
ming in the noble Charles was also a recreation very largely in- 
dulged in, as the summer term lasted nearly through July. All 
these things were strictly amusements, and were therefore 
pleasurable and profitable, and did not interfere at all with 
serious work. 

A little cloud was thrown over the end of our Senior year, 
which it is not necessary to speak of more particularly. Other- 
wise my college life was a time of unalloyed satisfaction, of 
which, as of my school days, I was sorry to see the end. I had 
succeeded in obtaining what had been the chief object of my 
youthful ambition, which of itself was enough to make me happy. 

If I am considered too much of an optimist in these recol- 
lections, and of seeing things too much couleur de rose, if it is 
thought that I ought to be able to conjure up some shadows for 
my picture, it probably grows out of the fact that I lived in such 
a state of exuberant health and strength that life itself was a 
pleasure to me, that I almost grudged a little time for sleep, and 
was always ready and happy to face the new day with its labors, 
trials, and responsibilities. 

But college life came to an end, and having duly "graduated," 
in September, 1834, I took the place that was ready for me at 
Chauncy-Hall School, succeeding Mr. Henry W. Pickering 
(H. C. 1831) as sole instructor of the Classical Department. 



THOMAS CUSHING. 67 

The scope of this paper will not permit me to give any de- 
tailed account of my life as a teacher. Suffice it to say that in 
the various capacities of instructor, junior partner, sole pro- 
prietor and principal, and senior partner, I was uninterruptedly 
connected with the school till July, 1879, which time I had pre- 
viously set for my retirement (somewhat jocosely at first, as it 
seemed so far off), as fifty years from the time of my beginning 
my apprenticeship. But it did come, and though it found me 
perfectly well and able to go on with my work, I deemed it best 
to do what I had deliberately decided to be most judicious, and 
retire when I was still able to enjoy life and perhaps make my- 
self slightly useful, rather than wait till I was compelled to leave 
my post by ill-health or failing powers. 

I will only say further, that for more than thirty years I did all 
the work of the classical department and a good deal in others, 
besides all the multifarious duties of one of the principals of a 
large private school, averaging about two hundred pupils ; that 
while I was connected with it, between four and five thousand 
pupils passed, metaphorically, sub ferula, while at least two hun- 
dred were prepared for different colleges, mostly for Harvard. 

It will hardly be esteemed arrogant, I trust, to assume that 
there must have been some reason other than chance at the bot- 
tom of the steady success of a private school for more than half 
a century. If asked to put this in the fewest possible words, I 
should say it was the application from the start of common 
sense and hard work. There was no pretence of any wonderful 
system that would place scholars on an equality and do away 
with the necessity of brains and labor. The gates of any " royal 
road " to learning did not open through that building. Nobody's 
opinions were allowed to come between the teacher and pupil in 
matters of instruction or discipline. No profession of making 
the acquisition of knowledge particularly easy was ever held out ; 
but the pupils were guided into the ways of wholesome labor 
and orderly conduct, and held there by a strict and steady disci- 
pline. Those who did not like these conditions were welcome 
to go elsewhere. 



68 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

Working thus untrammeled and irresponsible, except to my 
own conscience, I was always comfortable and happy in my 
position, and can say with truth that I enjoyed my fifty years of 
school-keeping, and still enjoy the retrospect of it. That I 
was able to do this under the very heavy burden of work that 
for a large portion of the time was laid upon my shoulders, arose 
no doubt from the fact that they were made broad and strong 
enough to bear it by the uninterrupted continuance of perfect 
health and great endurance ; for without these the lot of the 
teacher must be truly miserable. Fortunately my tastes helped 
to keep up this state of things. I was fond of and practised 
regularly athletic exercises, such as boxing, fencing, gymnastics, 
and, as I grew older, riding, adding to the good results of the last 
exercise by using horses hard-trotting enough to stir the blood in 
the coldest winter weather. I have also been mildly, but usually 
unsuccessfully, addicted to field-sports ; but have had what I 
consider the chief advantage of them, air, exercise, and some- 
thing to turn the mind out of its usual course of thought. It 
is prolbably owing to unsuitable original conditions and the want 
of taste for out-of-door exercises and pursuits, that school-keep- 
ing is so often distasteful and injurious to the health. 

When I began to teach, the summer vacation was about two 
and a half weeks in length, and the problem of how to pass it 
was pretty simple. But after it had gradually expanded to the 
whole month of August, and I began to have a young family 
growing up around me, I thought it best to secure a little spot 
of mother earth, where, far from fashion and its votaries and the 
ways of hotels and boarding-houses, I could build a shelter, at 
least, before all the beautiful spots were taken possession of for 
the summer mansions of the rich. I found such a place on a 
beautiful beach in the tflwn of North Scituate, Mass., and hav- 
ing found an optimistic Yankee carpenter, who promised "to 
build me a palace for five hundred dollars," I allowed him to do 
so. Here I have had my summer residence since 1848, with 
great advantage to myself and family, who have all become in 
a measure boatmen, fishermen, and farmers, besides dabbling in 



THOMAS CUSHING. 09 

many of the mechanic arts. At first activity was necessary to 
provide food for a family, and I sometimes told inquiring friends 
that I lived " like the American Indians, by hunting and fishing." 
But others have now found out the advantages and beauty of 
the locality ; land has risen from $50 to $2,500 or more an acre, 
neighbors are crowding upon me, and, were I younger, I would 
shoulder my gun and seek some more remote place to pass my 
summers. 

I have not attempted to do much outside of my profession, 
not even to make a school book, finding those in use sufficiently 
good if properly applied. I was one of the early members of 
the American Institute of Instruction, a body which took the 
first steps towards the educational improvements of the last fifty 
years. I was for many years its secretary, and lectured several 
times before it and other educational bodies, besides giving my 
views on practical instruction in the annual school catalogues. 
I have visited Europe several times in vacations, and spent per- 
haps the most interesting week of my life in Athens in 1874. 

On the 5th of June, 1841, I married Elizabeth Adelaide, 
daughter of Aaron Baldwin, Esq., of Boston, whose talents and 
virtues were always a delight and inspiration to me. Her death 
at about the time of my retirement from the school in 1879, 
disappointed my hopes of devoting my time to her failing health, 
which had influenced me in taking that step. She left me four 
sons, all of whom have been educated at Chauncy-Hall School 
and Harvard College, and are distributed among the professions. 
I have also eight grandchildren. 

1 do not by any means find my time unoccupied since I have 
retired from active teaching. I have done some amateur work, 
and am trying gradually to make some impression on the vast 
mass of interesting reading that I was obliged to put off to a 
"more convenient season," and which I could not exhaust were 
I to live a hundred years longer. 

Living in my native city among those whom I helped to 
educate, I meet friends at every turn, young, middle-aged, and 
even white-haired, and none are more friendly and more ready 



70 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

to acknowledge the benefits of school discipline than those who 
were the special subjects of it. In my travels, also, the inevita- 
ble old pupil turns up, greets me with satisfaction, and usually 
gives a good account of himself. If I have made any enemies 
they give no indication of it. 

With so much kindness around me and perfect health, I hope 
to live out gratefully whatever years may be added to the allotted 
span of life. 



FEEDEEIC DWIGHT. 

FEEDERIC DWIGHT, son of Jonathan (H. C. 1793) and 
Sarah (Shepherd) D wight, was born in Northampton about 
1815. 

He received his preliminary education at the famous Round- 
Hill School, of which his brother-in-law, George Bancroft 
(H. C. 1817) was one of the founders. Mr. D wight has not 
furnished any connected account of his life since leaving college, 
though repeatedly requested to do so, but has sent instead copious 
philosophical and political speculations, for which there is not 
room in a publication of this sort. 

He has lived a retired life at Agawam, near Springfield, and 
devoted himself to theoretical and speculative pursuits. 



SAMUEL MOESE FELTON. 

SAMUEL MOESE FELTON, son of Cornelius Conway and 
Anna (Morse) Felton, was born at West Newbury, Mass., 
July 17, 1809. His father early removed to North Chelsea, 
near Saugus, where the subject of this sketch attended the village 



SAMUEL MORSE FELTON. 71 

school, and passed his spare time in working upon the farms in 
the neighborhood. When fourteen and a half years old, he en- 
tered a grocery store in Boston as errand boy and clerk, where 
he stayed till eighteen. His older brother, Cornelius Conway 
(H. C. 1827), having just graduated with high honors, and 
having been appointed one of the Principals of the Livingston 
County High School, in New York, he entered that institution 
as scholar and clerk, staying there two years, and preparing 
himself for Harvard, which he entered in August, 1830. During 
his four years' residence in Cambridge, he supported himself by 
teaching school during vacations, and private pupils during term 
time. In college he was a member of the Institute of 1770, 
the Hasty Pudding Club and Phi Beta Kappa Society, and on 
taking his degree of A.M. in 1837, he had the honor of deliver- 
ing the Latin Oration. 

After leaving Cambridge, he opened a school in Charlestown, 
and entered his name with Judge Dana, intending to make the 
law his profession. The confinement was too much for his health, 
and he soon gave up the law for the more congenial study of 
Civil Engineering, entering the office of the distinguished en- 
gineer, Col. Loammi Baldwin (H. C. 1800). After Col. 
Baldwin's death in 1838, Mr. Felton opened an office on his own 
account, made the first survey of the Fresh-Pond Railroad, and 
built it in 1841. He then surveyed and built the Fitchburg 
Railroad, of which he was Superintendent and Engineer until 
1851, at the same time having been engaged on other New 
England railroads, notably the Cheshire, Rutland and Burlington 
and Vermont Central. In 1851 he was appointed president of 
the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and re- 
moved to Philadelphia, where he has since resided. 

The position which he occupied on this railroad, connecting as 
it does the North with the South, brought him in contact with 
many men prominent in the two sections of the country then 
drawing apart for the conflict which was soon to follow.* 

* An episode in Mr. Felton' s experience while president of this road is of such 
national interest that it is thought best to give it at length. 

Early in 1861 it came to his knowledge from rumors that there was a conspir- 



72 THE CLASS OF 1834. 



In 1865 Mr. Felton was obliged from shattered health to re- 
sign the presidency of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Balti- 
more Railroad. In October of that year the Pennsylvania Steel 

acy on foot among the southern sympathizers in Baltimore against the railroad 
of which he had charge. Determined to investigate the truth of these rumors, 
he took into the employ of the railroad the now celebrated detective, Allan 
Pinkerton. Pinkerton, with eight assistants, set to work and in a short time 
unearthed a conspiracy much more widespread and serious than had been sup- 
posed. This conspiracy was briefly as follows : if an attempt was made to in- 
augurate the president-elect in Washington, Mr. Lincoln was to be made way 
with in Baltimore on his way through that city; if, on the other hand, as then 
seemed probable, Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated in Philadelphia, and troops were 
called for the defence of Washington, the bridges on the Philadelphia, Wilming- 
ton and Baltimore Railroad, between the Susquehanna River and Baltimore, 
were to be burned, Washington isolated from the loyal North, and thus handed 
over to the Southerners, who were to seize it and the national archives and de- 
clare themselves de facto the national government of the United States. When 
Mr. Lincoln arrived in Philadelphia, on his way to Washington, his programme 
was to go from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, where he was to speak, and then 
make his way to Washington, via the Northern Central Railroad and Baltimore. 
Immediately on the announcement of this plan, the detectives reported that the 
attention of the conspirators in Baltimore had been transferred to the Northern 
Central Railroad, and that Mr. Lincoln would be waylaid and murdered on his 
approach to Baltimore by that route. On Mr. Lincoln's arrival in Philadelphia, 
Mr. Felton, through a friend of Mr. Lincoln, acquainted him with the plot against 
his life, and urged him to go to Washington privately that night. This Mr. 
Lincoln refused to do, saying that he had promised to speak in Harrisburg, and 
that he must fulfil his promise ; but that after he had done so, he would place 
himself in the hands of his friends. The following plan was then arranged by 
Mr. Felton for his safe transmission to Washington. After delivering his ad- 
dress in Harrisburg, he was apparently to retire with Gov. Curtin for the night, 
but really to be driven to a point two miles outside of Harrisburg, where a special 
car and engine were to await him, and immediately start with him for Phila- 
delphia. Meanwhile the telegraph wires leading in all directions from Harris- 
burg were to be cut. The special train conveying Mr. Lincoln of necessity 
arrived in Philadelphia later than the schedule time for the departure of the night 
express for Washington. It therefore became necessary to delay this train, and 
at the same time' to give some explanation of its delay to the management of the 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in Baltimore, in asking them to await its arrival 
before starting their train for Washington. Mr. Felton, therefore, stated to the 
authorities of the Baltimore and Ohio that he was preparing a very important 
package of papers for despatch by the night express ; that very probably he 
would have to delay his train for it, and asked the Baltimore and Ohio if they 
would, as a personal favor to him, delay the departure of their train to Washing- 
ton until the arrival of his train from Philadelphia. This request was readily 
complied with. The night express awaited Mr. Lincoln's arrival in Philadelphia, 
took him to Baltimore, where the train for Washington Avas awaiting this im- 
portant package of papers, and took it safely through to the nation's capital, the 
conspirators in Baltimore meanwhile supposing the president-elect quietly sleep- 
ing in Harrisburg. In the morning the first message which came over the wires 
from Washington was, " Your package has arrived safely and been delivered," 
the preconcerted signal that all was well, and that treason had been defeated. 

After the celebrated passage of the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers through 
Baltimore, the plot before contrived against the railroad was carried into effect, 
the bridges burned and Washington cut off from all communication with the 
North. During the previous winter the route to Washington via Annapolis had 



SAMUEL MORSE FELTON". 73 

Company, the first concern to manufacture Bessemer Steel on a 
commercial scale in the United States, was organized, and Mr. 
Felton chosen its president, an office which he has held ever 
since. He has for many years been connected with various rail- 
roads of the country, having been director in the Northern Paci- 
fic, St. Paul and Duluth, Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co., 
Delaware Eailroad, Eastern Shore, Chester Creek, Ogdensburg 
and Lake Champlain, Pennsylvania, Reading, West Jersey and 
Pennsylvania Co. In Grov. Andrew's administration he was 
appointed a State Commissioner of the Hoosac Tunnel. Later he 
was one of the five government commissioners appointed to make 
a final examination of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads. 
In 1875 and 1876 he was one of the Centennial Board of 
Finance, which organized and managed the Centennial Exhibi- 
tion, and is now President of the Harvard Club of Philadelphia. 
Mr. Felton has been twice married, and has four daughters 
and three sons, all living, and nine grandchildren. One of his 
sons was a graduate of Harvard College, class of 1879 ; one is 
a member of the present Sophomore class ; and one is a graduate 
of the Institute of Technology at Boston, and is a civil engineer. 



been suggested to Gen. Scott by Mr. Felton in case the bridges were destroyed, 
and this route was at once organized by Mr. Felton and Mr. J. Edgar Thompson, 
president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. These two gentlemen, on their own 
responsibility, hired and provisioned steamers and despatched them to Anna- 
polis and the Susquehanna. G-en. Butler, on his arrival in Philadelphia, found 
everything arranged for his transmission to Washington via Annapolis. At 
first he refused to go, saying that his orders were to go through Baltimore. But 
more prudent counsels prevailed, and Butler went to Washington via Annapolis, 
and in a characteristic spirit claimed for himself the credit of having originated 
and opened what was then the only way. of reaching the isolated capital. 



10 



74 THE CLASS OF 1834. 



HENRY GASSETT. 

TTENRY GASSETT, son of Henry (H. C. 1795) and Lucy 
-■ — ■- (Wood) Gassett, was born in Boston, February 7, 1813. 

His father was the great-grandson of a French Huguenot, 
Henri Gachet, who emigrated from La Rochelle about the year 
1700 to Taunton, Mass. 

In 1821, after a schooling of several years under Messrs. 
Greely, Thayer, and others in Boston, he was sent to North 
Andover to the Franklin Academy, Simeon Putnam (H. C. 
1811) Principal. In 1826, at the age of thirteen, he was sent 
to Paris, where he spent two years at the Pension Rouet. In 
1828 he returned to North Andover. Amono; his schoolmates 

o 

at North Andover were several who have become more or less 
distinguished in after life, viz., Oliver Ames, Dr. William Dale, 
C. C. Felton, John M. Farley, Dr. William Ingalls, Dr. George 
B. Loriug, Amos A. Lawrence, Prof. Benjamin Pierce, Rev. 
Chandler Robbins, and Rev. J. F. W. Ware. 

On leaving college he went into his father's counting-room, 
and after a business experience of sixteen years, withdrew to 
country life, cultivating a farm of eighty-six acres in North 
Wrentham, Mass., now Norfolk. In 1858 he left home for a 
tour of nearly three years throughout Europe, Egypt and Pales- 
tine, returning to his farm in 1861. In 1866 he removed to 
Dorchester, Mass., and has fully occupied his time since in the 
care of his place and the management of his own and trust 
property. In 1884 he removed to Braintree, where he now 
resides.* 

* Mr. Gassett upheld alone the cause of music on the part of the very un- 
musical class of 1834 in the Pierian Sodality; he also was instrumental with 
John S. D wight and others in organizing the Harvard Musical Association. — T, C. 









HENRY FRANCIS HARRINGTON. 75 



HENRY FRANCIS HARRINGTON. 

TTENRY FRANCIS HARRINGTON, the second son of 
-* — *- Joseph and Rebecca (Smith) Harrington, was born in 
Roxbury, Mass., where his parents lived, August 15, 1814. 
His early boyhood was quite uneventful, and was passed in his 
native town. In the fall of 1828, being then fourteen years old, 
he was sent to Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., to be fitted 
for college. There he remained till he entered college in 1830. 
He was a mere boy in college — to repeat, by direction, his 
own statement, and more " interested in mischief " and amuse- 
ment than in study. Consequently he was but little benefited 
by his college career, except in the branch of English literature, 
of which he was extravagantly fond. 

He spent the first year after his graduation in Boston as usher 
in the English High School. Then embracing a favorable op- 
portunity, he became one of the publishers and editors of a news- 
paper in Boston, a position for which he had an ardent inclination, 
But the terrible financial prostration of 1837 came on, and just 
as he had reason to feel that he had successfully weathered the 
storm, and placed his business on a firm foundation, his over- 
tasked constitution gave way, and for a year or more he lingered, 
as was supposed, between life and death; then he began to mend. 

After a short season of labor in New York city as editor of a 
monthly periodical, during which time he was studying for the 
Unitarian ministry, he went south in aid of his health, and 
preached for several months in Savannah, Georgia. 

Returning to the north in the spring of 1841, he was stationed 
in Providence, R. I., for three years as minister at large, in the 
service of the Unitarian societies of that city; and then, much 
preferring to organize new religious societies than to minister to 
old ones, he founded a society successively in Albany and Troy, 
N. Y., and Lawrence, Mass. In the last place he remained 
seven years and then removed to Cambridge, Mass., where he 



76 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

was pastor of the Lee Street Unitarian Society for ten years. 
At the end of that time, February, 1865, he accepted an 
earnest invitation from the School Committee of the city of New 
Bedford to take charge of the schools of that city as Superinten- 
dent ; and in that position he has remained to the present time. 
In November, 1838, he married Elizabeth Davis Locke, daugh- 
ter of Joseph and Mary Locke,, of Boston, by whom he has had 
five children. Two died in infancy. Of those who lived to 
maturity, the oldest, Frances Sargent, married Henry S. Mackin- 
tosh, of Cambridge ; the second, Mary Vincent, married James 
S. Tryon, of Eumford, E. I.; the third, Elizabeth Ingersoll, 
married John Tetlow, then of New Bedford, subsequently of 
Boston. She died in March, 1878. 



M 



ISAAC HINCKLEY. 

R. HINCKLEY sends the following brief account of his 
busy and useful life. 



Philadelphia, Dec. 27, 1883. 
My Dear Classmate : 

I was born in Hingham, Mass., October 28, 1815. My 
parents were Isaac and Hannah (Sturgis) Hinckley. In my 
seventh year I entered the Derby Academy, Hingham, where I 
was fitted to enter the class of 1833, with my schoolmates, Baker, 
Eaton and Gay, but was very properly retained at home on ac- 
count of my youth. In 1830 I entered without conditions with 
the class of 1834, but passed the Freshman year at home, join- 
ing the class at the beginning of the Sophomore year, September, 
1831. I shot ducks, kicked football, kept my shooting skiff 
and studied a little until December, 1832, when, by advice of 
Dr. Reynolds, at that time the first oculist in Boston, I "took 



ISAAC HINCKLEY. 77 



L,„ _„„„,.. 

to resume them, until, to my great surprise, I received my degree 
in 1865, through the kind exertions of some of my classmates. 
I had always, however, retained my interest in the class, and 
since 1859, when we had our first class meeting after graduating, 
I have never failed to dine with them on commencement day. 

From 1832 to 1836 I consulted the leading oculists in this 
country and in England, spending a portion of the time in Lon- 
don. In 1836, convinced that I must renounce all hope of be- 
coming a civil engineer, as I had earnestly desired, I sought 
position and work in Illinois, at that time distant from Boston 
ten days by mail route. There I was agent of the Andubon 
Land Co., and a farmer without hired men. I served the United 
States as a post-master, the State as a justice of the peace, and 
the County as a surveyor and commissioner of school lands. 

In 1845, worn out by fever and ague, I left the west and en- 
tered the service of the Boston and Providence Railroad Co. 
Till 1848 I represented that company in Providence, and then 
became Superintendent of the Providence and Worcester Rail- 
road Co. when first operating their road. In 1850 I left active 
railroad service and became Superintendent of the Merrimac 
Manufacturing Co. of Lowell, Mass., which office I held till 
1865. During most of that period I was a director of the Bos- 
ton and Lowell Railroad Co., the Lowell Gas Light Co., and 
the Lowell Institution for Savings. Early in 1865 I accepted 
the presidency of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore 
Railroad Co., left vacant by the resignation of my old friend and 
classmate, Samuel M. Felton, whose health was so seriously im- 
paired as to force him to retire after an eminently successful 
administration of more than thirteen years. 

I am still president of the P., W. and B. R. R. Co., and of 
several other connecting roads, but for two years past I have 
been relieved from active work, and have much time at my dis- 
posal. I have had my full share of physical troubles, but am still 
reasonably well and able to travel in pursuit of swans, geese and 
ducks, from Florida to northern Dakota, as I have done this year. 



78 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

In 1840 I married Julia Randolph To wnsend, born in Illinois 
of parents who emigrated from New York in 1818. We have 
had born to us four bo) T s and three girls. Of the boys one died 
in infancy ; another, Wallace, Adjutant of the 44th Massachu- 
setts Vol. Infantry, and of the 2d Massachusetts Vol. Heavy 
Artillery, died in 1865, at the age of twenty-one, at Fort Macon, 
N. C, having given the last three years of his life to his 
country's service. Five remain to us, and my dear companion 
in weal and wo for forty-three years continues to be the chief 
blessing of my home. 

Very truly, 

Your friend and classmate, 

Isaac Hinckley. 



CHARLES MASON. 

A S the conventional circumstance of being born, it seems 
-*-^- commonly to be expected, will be an item in any biograph- 
ical sketch, it may be stated here that that event, it is under- 
stood, came to me on the 3d day of June, 1810, at Dublin, 
N. H. My father and mother were Thaddeus, Jr., and Lydia 
(Perry) Mason, both of Dublin nativity, whose immediate an- 
cestors removed to that place from Sherborn about the year 1765. 
My paternal lineage is deduced through Capt. Hugh Mason, 
who came to this country from England in 1634, and settled in 
Watertown, Mass. 

My early years were passed much as those of other formers' 
boys at that time ; attending the district school for a term of 
eight or ten weeks in the summer and about the same in winter ; 
after that in the winter only ; the rest of the time at work. I 
began the study of Latin in the autumn after I was eighteen at 
a private fall school which chanced to be held in the town that 



CHARLES MASON. 79 

year. The succeeding winter I kept a district school, and stud- 
ied Latin as I had time. The next spring, 1829, I went to 
fillips Exeter Academy, where I continued at that time but 
>ne term, and spent the rest of the year at home studying, ex- 
cept that in the winter I kept a public school. In the spring 
succeeding, 1830, I returned to the Academy at Exeter, where 
remained four terms, the last year in the advanced class, until 
.ugust, 1831. 

When at Exeter I was a member, and for a time president, 
of the Golden Branch, and delivered a Valedictory before the 
Society at the close of my last term at the Academy. And 
here I ought to recognize, as I do with deep personal satisfaction, 
my obligations for the encouragement, counsel and aid afforded 
me at that stage of my education by the Rev. Levi Washburn 
Leonard, D.D. (H. C. 1815), the minister of my native town, 
a man of pure and exalted character, of practical good sense, of 
sound judgment and wise discrimination, of a kindly and genial 
spirit, one of the "doers of the word" also, whose life was 
given to arousing the intellectual faculties, refining the feelings 
and tastes, keeping pure and unsullied the morals, and quick- 
ening the spiritual perceptions of the people ; whose special de- 
votion and consecration were to the young, and who did more, 
doubtless, for the common schools of his adopted state than any 
other man of the day. 

In September, after I left Exeter, I entered the Sophomore 
class in Dartmouth College, where I continued till towards the 
end of the college year, when I took up my connections with 
Dartmouth in order to enter at Cambridge, for which I had been, 
as far as was practicable, preparing for some weeks previous. 
Unfortunately for me the course of study at Dartmouth was 
then well nigh a full year behind that of Harvard ; but remain- 
ing at home the rest of the summer studying by myself, by dili- 
gence, persistence, and hard work generally, I was able to 
accomplish so much, that upon examination, on the first of 
September, 1832, I was admitted clear to the Junior class of 
Harvard College. 



80 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

In those times, some of us found it necessary and were per- 
mitted to be absent for a term in the winter to keep school. In 
the Junior year I had a public school in the centre of North- 
borough ; in the Senior year in the centre of Sterling. With 
these exceptions I spent the whole of these two years in steady 
attendance upon the work of the class. The years passed 
pleasantly, and considering my limited time and opportunities 
for fitting, and the breaks in my four years' course of study, as 
profitably and successfully as could reasonably have been antici- 
pated. I graduated in regular course in 1834, and three years 
later took the degree of A.M. 

While in college I was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club 
and of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In the latter part of the 
Junior year I wrote a dissertation which was offered for a Bow- 
doin prize, and to which the first prize was awarded. 

I had intended to spend some time after graduating in teach- 
ing ; but no eligible place offering at the time, I remained at 
home through the autumn, and in default of anything specific 
to do, took up the study of Hebrew by myself; and the next 
term I spent in the Divinity School at Cambridge. But, at the 
close of the term, having an opportunity to take the Medford 
High School, then just opened, I gladly availed myself of it, 
and had the charge of that institution from May to August. In 
the course of the summer a tutorship in the Latin department at 
Harvard College was offered me, which, with some hesitation, I 
accepted. I entered upon my duties as tutor at the beginning 
of the fall term of 1835, and held the position for four years. 
During two and a half years of this time I was also a student 
in the Dane Law School, and having completed the prescribed 
course of study, in 1839 I received the degree of LL.B. 

After leaving the law school, I spent several months in the 
office of Messrs. Hubbard and Watts, in Boston, and in Sep- 
tember, 1839, was admitted in Boston to practise in the courts 
of the Commonwealth and in the United States Circuit and Dis- 
trict Courts. In June, 1841, I opened an office in Lancaster, 
where I remained till September, 1842, when I removed to the 






CHAKLES MASON. 81 

neighboring town (now the city) of Fitchburg, where I have since 
resided. In June, 1842, I was appointed one of the standing 
commissioners in bankruptcy for the Massachusetts District under 
the United States bankrupt law, and held the office till the law 
was repealed. Afterwards, I was a Master in Chancery for the 
County of Worcester, an office which, at that time, had jurisdic- 
tion of insolvency proceedings ; and in 1851, upon a change in 
the statutes upon the subject, I was appointed a Commissioner 
of Insolvency for Worcester County, which office I held till 1853, 
when I was removed for being a Free Soiler, which, unde- 

iably, I was. 
I have had but little participation in political or public affairs. 
I was a member of the House of Representatives of Massachu- 

etts in 1849 and in 1851. In the latter year my position, had 
done nothing else, gave me an opportunity to do what I doubt 
not I shall ever contemplate with profound satisfaction, — to cast 

he vote, which, in the same sense as did that of every other of the 
one hundred and ninety-three members who voted for him, after 
a struggle of more than three months, on the twenty-sixth bal- 
lot, elected Charles Sumner to the United States Senate. I was 
also a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1853. 

I was married Aug. 9, 1853, to Caroline Atherton Briggs, 
youngest daughter of Dr. Calvin and Rebecca (Monroe) Briggs. 
Dr. Briggs was a graduate of Williams College, 1803, and received 
the degrees of A.M. and M.B. from Harvard in 1807, and of 
M.D. in 1811, and was a practising physician in Marblehead for 
forty-five years. We have one child, Atherton Perry Mason, 
born Sept. 13, 1856, who graduated at Harvard College in 
1879, and in 1882, after completing the regular course of study 
in the Harvard Medical School, took the degree of M.D., and is 
settled in the practice of his profession at Fitchburg. 

All this, I am aware, only touches some of the apices — the 

tips — without coming very near to the actual grain, the essence 

and substance of the life. But then the interior phase of an 

uneventful life, if shown, is of little interest or concern to others. 

It has become rather fashionable to decry academical education 



82 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

as of little worth, if not indeed positively harmful to success in 
life. For myself, I know not for what consideration I would 
voluntarily part with the memory of my relations, humble as 
they were, with Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College, 
and the resultant advantages of those relations. It is undeni- 
able, that many a college graduate wofully fails to achieve a life 
which in any worthy sense can be called successful. But could 
an accurate account be taken of the number of actual failures in 
life of college graduates as compared with the whole class of 
graduates, and of the number of like failures of those not gradu- 
ates as compared with the whole of that class, I imagine that 
the percentage of failures in the former class would be found to 
be surprisingly less than in the latter. Moreover, I confess to a 
sympathy with a view, which is well expressed by a writer in the 
Century for October, 1883, p. 950. " The main purpose of ed- 
ucation is not to promote success in life, but to raise the standard 
of life itself." I understand the word " success " in this connection 
in the sense in which I am constrained to believe it lies in the 
minds of the majority of people, as that success the unit of 
which, distinctively and always, is the dollar. With the idea of 
attaining to this success, young men instead of laboring thought- 
fully and patiently to develop and compact a broad and substan- 
tial foundation, suitable, when needed, to receive any desired 
superstructure, are spurred on to the exclusive culture of one or 
a few specific faculties, thereby marring the integrity, the whole- 
ness, the symmetrical completeness of their constitution, and 
rendering themselves in a degree deformed and monstrous ; and 
this to the end that they may the earlier become more eifective 
machines for doing work, the whole ultimating practically and 
mainly as the final cause in their earning more money or per- 
chance acquiring more fame : — both which are, after all, but 
selfish considerations. 

I hold that a man, as one of his race, owes something to 
himself personally, and not all to his estate or to the world. 
There is a success in which I fully believe, and that is the suc- 
cess whose criterion is not primarily wealth or distinction, but 
character. 



JOHN WITT RANDALL. 



CHARLES BRECK PARKMAN. 

/CHARLES BRECK PARKMAN, son of Charles (II. C. 
^^ 1803) and Joanna Phillips (Fay) Parkman, was born at 
Westborough, Mass., June 13, 1813. His preparation for col- 
lege was made at Leicester Academy. 

Though at present in poor health, Mr. Parkman has written 
briefly as follows in regard to his life. 

"My father died soon after my graduation, and I succeeded 
to his business and attended to the care of his family for several 
years, until the younger members had grown up, I being the 
eldest but one of eight, six girls and two boys. For a short 
time I taught school in Westborough. I also studied medicine 
one week, until, while studying a medical work one day, I found 
a confession by the Medical Faculty of Paris, that the practice 
of medicine was an experiment, and as likely to kill as cure ; 
that, in fact, it was thought more men were killed by it than 
cured. I afterwards became engaged in trade for two years at 
St. Louis; then a resident of Madison, Ind., for six years, as 
clerk in a foundry and railroad office. Thence, in 1849, 1 went 
to California, where I remained two years, long enough to find 
gold sufficient to pay my expenses back. I afterwards resided in 
this place, Indianapolis, as secretary of a rail-mill, until a few years 
since. Of course, subject to so many changes in life, I have 
never married, my father's children (some of them) having been 
a charge and care to me during much of my and their lives." 



JOHN WITT RANDALL. 

JOHN WITT RANDALL, son of Dr. John (H. C. 1802) 
^ and Elizabeth (Wells) Randall, granddaughter of Samuel 



84 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

Adams, the great patriot of the Revolution, was born in Boston, 
Mass., Nov. 6, 1813. 

He received his preparatory education at the Boston Latin 
School, in company with many who were afterwards his class- 
mates in college, by whom his peculiar and marked originality 
of character is well remembered. Though among them he was 
not wholly of them, but seemed to have thoughts, pursuits and 
aspirations to which they were strangers. 

This was also the case after he entered college, where his tastes 
developed in a scientific direction, Entomology being the branch 
to which he specially devoted himself, though heartily in sym- 
pathy with nature in her various aspects. The college did little 
at that time to encourage or aid such pursuits ; but Mr. Randall 
pursued the quiet tenor of his way till he had a very fine collec- 
tion of insects and extensive and thorough knowledge on that and 
kindred subjects, while his taste for poetry and the belles-lettres 
was also highly cultivated. 

He studied medicine after graduation, but his acquisitions as a 
naturalist were so well-known and recognized that he received 
the honorable appointment of Professor of Zoology in the de- 
partment of invertebrate animals in the South Sea Exploring 
Expedition (called Wilkes's), which the United States were fit- 
ting out about this time. 

We can all remember the wearisome delays and jealousies 
which occurred before the sailing of the Expedition, which finally 
caused Mr. Randall to throw up his appointment. Since that 
time he has led a quiet and retired life, devoting himself to his 
favorite pursuits, adding to them also the collection of engravings, 
of which he has one of the most rare and original collections in 
this country. He has also devoted much time to the cultivation 
and improvement of an ancestral country seat at Stow, Mass., for 
the ancient trees of which he has an almost individual friendship. 

An account of his life and experiences from Mr. Randall's 
own pen would have been very interesting as well as amusing 
and witty ; for in these qualities he excels. In excusing himself 
from giving this, he writes as follows : 



JOHN WITT RANDALL. 85 

"As for myself, my life having been wholly private, presents 
little that I care to communicate to others, or that others would 
care to know. I cannot even say for myself as much as was 
contained in Professor Teufelsdrock's epitaph on a famous hunts- 
man, viz. that in a long life he killed no less than ten thousand 
foxes. 

"It might have been interesting in former days to have related 
adventures of my foot journeys as a naturalist, amid scenes and 
objects then little known or wholly unknown, where the solitary 
backwoodsman and his family, sole occupants of a tract of bound- 
less forest, were often so hospitable as to surrender their only 
bed to the stranger, and huddle themselves together on the floor. 
But since Audubon published his travels, and railroads have 
penetrated everywhere, such accounts cease to be original, 
and indeed the people themselves have become almost every- 
where homogeneous. Itineraries fill all the magazines, and 
natural curiosities little known forty years ago have become long 
since familiar to the public. 

"As for my present self, I will say no more than that for 
health's sake to be much out-of-doors, I have been for a long 
time engaged in hydraulic, planting, building, and other im- 
provements on my grounds, which create, it is true, pleasant oc- 
cupation, but which when compared with wild nature so varied 
about me, I am impressed with the conviction how inferior are 
our artificial pleasures to those simple enjoyments of wood, water, 
air and sunshine, which we have unconsciously and inexpensively 
in common with the innumerable creatures, equally capable of 
enjoying them. 

" As to my literary works, — if I except scientific papers on sub- 
jects long ago abandoned, as one on Crustacea in the Transactions 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia ; two on In- 
sects in the Transactions of the Boston Society of Natural His- 
tory ; one manuscript volume on the Animals and Plants of Maine, 
furnished to Dr. Charles T. Jackson to accompany his Geologi- 
cal Survey of that State, and lost by him ; Critical Notes on 
Etchers and Engravers, one volume ; classification of ditto, one 
11 



8Cy THE CLASS OF 1834. 

volume, both in manuscript incomplete and not likely to be 
completed, together with essays and reviews in manuscript not 
likely to be published, — my doings reduce themselves to six 
volumes of poetic works, the first of which was issued in 1856 
and reviewed shortly after in the North American, while the 
others, nearly or partially completed at the outbreak of the civil 
war, still lie unfinished among the many wrecks of Time, pain- 
ful to most of us to look back upon, or reflect themselves on a 
Future whose skies are as yet obscure." 

Dr. Randall was never married, and resides with his sister in 
Roxbury. 



SAMUEL WILLIAM RODMAN. 

T PROMISED, I believe, at our last class meeting, to write a 
-*- short sketch of my life. In looking back upon the past I 
find so little in it of general interest, that I feel sure my friends 
will agree with my own conclusion, that, the briefer the sketch, 
the better it will be. 

My father, William R. Rodman, was born in New Bedford, 
Mass. (the family having originally come to Newport, R. L, in 
1676), and was sent for some years to Reading, England, for 
his education. Soon after coming of age he removed to Phila- 
delphia, Pa., and married my mother, Rebecca Wain Morgan, 
of that city. I was born in Philadelphia, Oct. 30, 1814. The 
family removed to New Bedford in the autumn of 1829. I was 
first sent to a school near Philadelphia, then recently opened by 
a Frenchman named Phiquepal. In 1826 my father took me to 
Northampton, Mass., and placed me in that famous "Round 
Hill" boarding school, which had been established not long be- 
fore by Messrs. Cogswell & Bancroft, and which attracted for 
years large numbers of boys of the most prominent families in 
the country, from Maine to Louisiana, from Canada and the 



SAMUEL WILLIAM RODMAN. 87 

"West Indies. At this school I spent nearly four and a half 
years satisfactorily and pleasantly, leaving it only when I went 
up to Cambridge for my examination in 1830. The school was 
conducted on broad and liberal principles. There was a very 
strong corps of teachers, including Messrs. Felton, Beck, Wal- 
ker and Hillard, who instructed us in all the usual languages 
and common branches of education, as well as in drawing, music, 
singing, dancing, riding, etc. etc. Even at this late day, 
though so many have passed away, I am constantly meeting in 
all parts of the world some old K Round Hill " friend and school- 
mate. 

Of my college life little need be said. I lived the first year 
at Prof. Farrar's ; the two next at Dr. Ware Senior's, and the 
last in Stoughton Hall. Study never attracted me strongly. I 
always preferred to wander, gun in hand, on ornithological ex- 
cursions, with my good friend Prof. Nuttall, who was then pub- 
lishing his very useful and popular ornithology. After graduating 
I read law with Judge Warren (H. C. 1817) of New Bedford, 
and in the spring of 1836 sailed for Europe, where I remained 
for nearly two years, travelling over the whole continent, and 
passing some weeks at Algiers in the early days of the French 
domination. Returning home I went into the whaling business, 
in which I continued for ten years. 

In October, 1838, I was married at King's Chapel, Boston, 
to Emma, daughter of Thomas Motley, and we have now lived 
together for more than forty-five years. We have had four 
children : two sons, both of whom are dead ; and two daugh- 
ters, of whom the eldest was married, and is left a widow with 
four children. 

In 1850 I removed to Boston, and have since resided there 
and in the neighborhood, with the exception of some ten years 
spent in Europe, during four journeys, the last not yet completed. 

My tastes have always leaned towards an out-of-door life. I 
have devoted much time to shooting, fishing, riding, and driving ; 
and to this taste added to the inheritance of a good constitution 
I ascribe the excellent health which I have always enjoyed, and 



88 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

which enables me yet, in my seventieth year, to participate in 
these, my favorite pursuits, with the same ardor as I could 
twenty years ago. 



D 



JOSEPH SARGENT. 

R. SARGENT sends the following statement in regard to 
himself. 



I was born in Leicester, Mass., Dec. 15, 1815, being the 
second son of Henry and Elizabeth (Denny) Sargent. 

Having received my preparation at Leicester Academy, I en- 
tered college in 1830. Graduating with the class in 1834, I 
entered immediately upon the study of medicine in the office of 
Dr. Edward Flint, the principal physician in my native town. 
I remained with him one year, reading a great deal and learning 
very little. In the autumn of 1835 I went to Boston, and en- 
tered the Medical School, being also under private instruction 
from Dr. James Jackson, Dr. John Ware, Dr. Winslow Lewis, 
and Dr. George Otis, all Harvard graduates. I retained mem- 
bership in this school till my graduation in 1837, although I 
spent about six months in the autumn and winter of 1836 and 
1837 in Philadelphia, under instruction from both schools there 
at that time, the Pennsylvania University and the Jefferson 
Medical College. These schools were then at constant war 
with each other, like the Guelphs and Ghibbelines, and it was a 
wonder to the foolish that I could belong to both. My chum 
in Philadelphia was our classmate, S. Conant Foster, who after- 
wards practised medicine in New York. 

Returning to Boston in the spring of 1837, I took my medi- 
cal degree in the August following, and was immediately ap- 
pointed house physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital, 
which office I filled for the customary period of one year. In 



JOSEPH SARGENT. 89 

September, 1838, in company with Dr. William Mack (H. C. 
1833), who had been my associate at the Hospital as house sur- 
geon, I sailed for Europe. In Paris mostly and in London for 
a few weeks I pursued my medical studies till May, 1840, when 
I sailed for New York. Arriving in the last of May, I opened 
an office in Worcester, Mass., June 1, 1840. Here I have re- 
mained since, working faithfully, with two recesses of nearly 
one year each spent in Europe for medical improvement, the first 
in 1850 and the second in 1867 and '68. 

Sept. 27, 1841, I married Emily Whitney of Cambridge, 
sister of the wife of our admirable professor and president Fel- 
ton, who was nearer to our class because the brother of our ex- 
cellent and distinguished classmate, Samuel M. Felton. We 
have had six living children, of whom four survive, two sons and 
two daughters. The sons are both graduates of Harvard Col- 
lege, Joseph Sargent, Jr., and Henry Sargent, of the classes of 
1870 and 1876, and are both married. The daughters remain 
unmarried. 

The foregoing is all of my history that could possibly interest 
any public, and it was my purpose to stop here ; but the sug- 
gestion from our historiographer, that these memoirs are not for 
the public but for the class, prompts me to say more. 

The freedom and fulness and confidence with his classmates 
which may be becoming to the Harvard graduate of fifty years 
ago, do not, alas ! befit the graduate in the large classes of to- 
day, and would scarcely be appreciated. This ancient and honor- 
able class-interest was an important part of the interest of the 
graduate in the college itself, threw a halo around its learning 
and all its happy influences, and contributed largely to its pros- 
perity and success. But this is of the past. The college is 
now "cosmopolitan," and is "run," to use the language of the 
day, in a business way, and young men go through its courses 
as a business operation. They select their own studies, instead 
of submitting themselves to the guidance and instruction of men 
wise by learning and experience. The once scholastic campaign 
is a sort of guerilla operation, irregular, unsteady, discursive, 



90 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

and erratic. When a whole class moved in the same ranks, 
through the same field, sustaining each other towards the same 
end, under wise and experienced direction, there was sympathy, 
fellowship and strength. The field, the fellows, and the end were 
never forgotten. I write this because I feel it, and it may ex- 
plain and excuse a more detailed autobiography. 

In looking back over the fifty years since our graduation, I 
take satisfaction in saying, that while I studied medicine as an 
undergraduate, I studied most assiduously, always far into the 
nio-ht. My thesis for graduation was upon Cicatrization of Tuber- 
cular Cavities in the Lungs, and was, so far as I know, the first 
monograph ever written on this important subject. I read it 
recently, after it had remained untouched nearly fifty years, and 
was proud to find it was still good reading. I say this in the 
consciousness of self-glorification, which is a proper part of one's 
autobiography to his own classmates of fifty years ago. This 
essay attracted the attention of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, whose son, 
the great surgeon, Henry J. Bigelow, was my successor at the 
Hospital, and who afterwards in his own recovery from gravest 
disease illustrated the theory of the essay. To the favor of Dr. 
Jacob Bigelow I have been greatly indebted for what success I 
have had in professional life. 

While in Paris, in 1838 and 1839, I wrote a successful prize 
essay on Medulla Sarcoma. This essay is far behind the surgery 
of to-day ; but it gave me some distinction at the time, and this 
was largely increased by its associating me with Dr. Gerhard of 
Philadelphia, who got the medical prize in the same year of 1840. 

My professional life in Worcester has had a certain provincial 
success ; and I have often felt that I got more credit than I de- 
served. I have endeavored to do good, and to hold high the 
standard of the medical profession. 

Politically, as parties were in 1840, I was a Democrat, and I 
held to that party so long as it seemed to me to have any fixed 
principles. Free trade, a sound currency and equal rights de- 
signated my political creed. But I was also an abolitionist of 
the Garrisonian type, my first inspiration coming from Henry 



ROY ALL TYLER. 91 

Ware, Jr., Dr. Follen, and the Grimkes in 1832. From my 
first settlement in Worcester, I was known as an abolitionist, 
when, to be such, was to be pointed at and stigmatized. Many 
are the times that I have met as with a few in an upper cham- 
ber. Perhaps I am the only one of the class who ever had to 
do with John Brown, whose spirit afterwards went marching on. 
I was of a party in 1857 or 1858, with three or four others, 
where John Brown and Frederic Douglass were the guests at a 
little supper. No exploits, nor rashness, nor raids were spoken 
of, but universal humanity alone. 

But I have written enough. As boy, as man, as physician, 
as philanthropist, I believe I have always been consistent. To 
the class of 1834 I have always been true. And thus I have 
written the history of my own life, which no other man would 
ever think worth writing, 



ROYALL TYLER. 

JUDGE TYLER has sent memoranda for the following brief 
statement.— T. C. 

Royall Tyler, son of Chief Justice Royall (H. C. 1776) and 
Mary (Palmer) Tyler, was born at Brattleboro', Vermont, April 
19, 1812. His name was originally Charles, but was changed 
to Royall for family reasons by act of Legislature. 

He was prepared for college at Phillips Exeter Academy, and 
entered as Sophomore in 1831. He had a scholarly habit of 
mind and pleasant wit, which made him a genial and popular 
companion. He was chosen class poet ; but his poem touching 
more upon the troubles of the times than met the approbation of 
the Faculty, it was not delivered in the college chapel, but at a 
class entertainment at Porter's on the evening of Class Day, as 
will be remembered by all. Like many others he did not take 



92 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

his degree at Commencement in 1834, but received it subse- 
quently in 1847. On leaving college he immediately began the 
study of law in the office of Charles G. Loring. Esq., of Bos- 
ton, and was admitted as Attorney and Counsellor of the Supreme 
Court in 1838, and established himself in his native town of 
Brattleboro' in 1839, and began the practice of law. He 
was elected Judge of Probate for the district of Marlboro', which 
consists of the southern part of the Windham County, in 1846, 
and has held the office by successive elections up to the present 
time. He was appointed clerk of all the courts of Windham 
County in the spring of 1851, and holds the office still. 

Mr. Tyler was married to Miss Laura B. Keyes, daughter of 
Judge Asa Keyes, of Brattleboro', in the spring of 1841. He 
has had three daughters, one of whom died in infancy, and the 
other two are married. 



CHARLES ELIOT WAEE. 

/CHARLES ELIOT WARE, son of Dr. Henry (H. C. 
^^ 1785) and Elizabeth (Bowes) Ware, was born in Cam- 
bridge, Mass., May 7, 1814. 

With the exception of one year passed at the Academy at 
Lancaster, Mass., he received his education preliminary to en- 
tering college at private schools in Cambridge. He entered 
Harvard in 1830, and graduated in 1834. He immediately 
entered the Medical School in Boston, and took his medical de- 
gree in 1837. 

Excepting two visits to Europe, at intervals of twenty years, 
he has lived and practised his profession in Boston. He was 
married in 1854, and has one daughter. 



CHARLES NEWELL WARREN. 93 



CHARLES NEWELL WARREN. 

/CHARLES NEWELL WARREN, son of Jonas and Dolly 
^-^ (Tucker) Warren, was born in Stow, Mass., July 21, 
1818. He received his preparation for college at the Academy 
in Stow, entering in 1830 at the age of twelve years, and 
joining the class at the beginning of the last term of the Fresh- 
man year in the summer of 1831. He was the youngest mem- 
ber of the class, and was familiarly known as "Little Warren," 
his size and appearance corresponding to his years. Though so 
young he was always found adequate to the duties of his posi- 
tion, and graduated creditably in 1834. 

After graduating he taught successively at Framingham, 
Mass., and at Baltimore and Port Deposit, Md. In the winter 
of 1836 he went to Kentucky with the intention of practising 
civil engineering ; but being made professor of mathematics in 
Bacon College, Georgetown, Ky., he remained there one year. 
He then entered upon the practice of civil engineering, and con- 
tinued it for fourteen years. He was engaged first on the Cincin- 
nati and Charleston railroad ; then on the road from Frankfort to 
Lexington ; and finally built the railroad from Frankfort to 
Louisville. 

In the year 1843 he married Miss Myra Aldridge, of Lan- 
caster, Ky., and has had a family of seven children, four girls 
and three boys, all of whom are living. 

In 1852 he commenced business as a private banker, and in 
1865 became president of a National Bank, in which position he 
remained for more than thirty years. The institution is thus 
spoken of in a book called "The Industries of Louisville": 
"Among the great fiduciary institutions of Louisville f The Louis- 
ville City National Bank' stands prominent, not only for the 
greatness of its financial weight and the extent of its operations, 
but, also, on account of the high standing and spotless character 
of its management. The banking business was established in 
12 



94 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

this city in 1851 by C. N. Warren and J. P. Curtis as a private 
banking concern, under the name and style of C. N. Warren & 
Co. Daring the early years of its existence, the bank was de- 
voted to a general banking and brokerage business, and in that 
field its manager, Mr. Warren, displayed such shrewd skill and 
energy as a manipulator of large sums of money, and pursued 
such an honorable and liberal policy, that his house soon took 
rank among the most reliable and substantial establishments of 
the kind in the city, and its proprietor stood among the soundest 
and ablest of our financialists. In 1865 the bank was reor^an- 
ized as a National Bank, under the National Banking Act, 
taking then its present name, with Mr. C. N. Warren as presi- 
dent. The conservative basis upon which it was originally or- 
ganized has never been impaired, and the principles which were 
laid down for its guidance thirty years ago by its most prominent 
founder and present president have been adhered to through 
every change." 

Since the publication of the above Mr. Warren has started a 
new bank in Louisville, — the Fourth National Bank, a govern- 
ment deposit bank, of which he is president. 

No one has shown a greater interest in his Alma Mater and 
the class of 1834 than Mr. Warren. He has almost invariably 
been present at commencements and class festivals, and has 
been a liberal contributor to everything calculated to promote 
class interests and pleasures. 

Note. — Mr. Warren being unable to write at present, from impaired vision, 
the above notice has been prepared by T. C. 



HIRAM WELLINGTON. 

TTIRAM WELLINGTON, son of David and Rebecca 
-■ — *- (Stearns) Wellington, was born March 14, 1806, in 
Lexington, Mass., being the oldest member of the class. He 






HIRAM WELLINGTON. 95 

lived with his father till about twenty years of age, with no ad- 
vantages of education except those afforded by the common 
schools daring the winter. Neither his taste nor opportunity 
for study was likely to be much developed or gratified while un- 
der the influences of home, nor were the common schools as then 
organized able to give him such an education as he desired. The 
question was, how should he gratify his desire for a better edu- 
cation ? He could look to his father for very little encourage- 
ment or assistance. He must assume and carry the burden alone 
if at all. The loss of his mother when he was about fifteen 
years of age rendered his situation still more discouraging for 
the attainment of his desire. He was not brilliant, hardly up 
to mediocrity. Why then did he desire an education? For 
many reasons, but principally for its intrinsic worth, and because 
the possession of it would be a constant source of enjoyment of 
which no one could deprive him. Accordingly he undertook it, 
and has never repented it. 

After leaving college he spent two years in the State of Maine ; 
one year in Castine teaching a private school, and one year in 
Ellsworth in the law office of Joshua W. Hathaway, Esq. Re- 
turning to Cambridge he entered the Harvard Law School, 
where he completed his studies in 1838. In the summer of that 
year he was admitted to the Suffolk bar, and took an office in 
Boston, where he has since resided and practised his profession. 
He has always enjoyed uninterrupted good health, and has 
never had occasion to use glasses to enable him to read printing 
or manuscript. 

In October, 1851, he was married to Miss Anne A. Hudson, 
then of Boston, but a native of Westborough, Mass., with whom 
he has lived very happily. He is without children. 

In their religious associations Mr. Wellington and his wife 
joined the Park Street Congregational Church, during the pas- 
torate of Rev. Andrew L. Stone, and are still members of that 
church. He has never sought nor filled any public office, with 
the exception of a few years' service on the Primary School 
Committee. 



96 THE CLASS OF 1834. 



NATHANIEL WEST. 

"VTATHANIEL WEST, son of Nathaniel and Mary Bowles 
-^ (White) West, was born in Salem, Mass., Oct. 22, 1814. 

He received his preparation for college at the Salem Latin 
School, entered the Freshman class in 1830, passed smoothly- 
through the whole four years, and graduated in 1834. Mr. 
West was very much interested in all out-of-door exercises, in 
which he was a proficient ; at the present day he would have 
been the champion of his class in every thing of the sort, having 
a large and noble person and great physical strength, combined 
with a most generous and amiable disposition. 

Having a taste for field sports and skill in woodcraft, Mr. 
West knew the haunts and habits of beast, bird or fish for miles 
around. Cambridge was then comparatively a wild region 
within a moderate walk of the college, and the discharge of a 
gun would cause no alarm or disturbance. Thus rural excur- 
sions, including shooting or fishing as a side issue, were in vogue 
for pleasant Saturdays, then largely leisure time, and there was 
no more skilful leader and guide than he on such occasions. 
The writer of this notice can well remember a golden holiday 
passed under his guidance, when, though not himself a sports- 
man, he was admitted to the mysteries of the gentle art, helping 
to force a light skiff through the net work of shallow streams, over- 
arched by green boughs, through which the flickering sunlight 
fell upon the water, which connected Fresh Pond with adjoining 
waters, and seeing the beautiful wood-duck fall to his unerring 
gun, or the pickerel flash out of its native element. Ah ! those 
were golden days indeed, to be lived again in memory, but never 
to return. 

Mr. West moved to the West with his father and family, and 
settled in Indianapolis. For about ten years he was engaged in 
the farming and milling business, and subsequently in real es- 
tate, in which he continued in that city until 1860, when he went 



JOSEPH HARTWELL WILLIAMS. 



97 



to Newton County, settling in Kentland, and still continuing in 
the real estate business until 1868, when he was elected clerk of 
the court of Newton County, which office he held nearly three 
years. Mr. West owned a farm of two hundred and forty acres 
southwest of Kentland, and desiring to improve it he moved 
from Kentland, and has continued to reside on the farm. He 
is well located, with evidence of thrift and good management. 
He takes an interest in his old associates, but can hardly look 
forward to attending our meetings, as he has been a victim of 
muscular rheumatism for many years. 

Note. — Being unable to use a pen, Mr. West has entrusted me with the 
preparation of the above notice, — T. C. 



JOSEPH HAETWELL WILLIAMS, 



JOSEPH HART WELL WILLIAMS, son of Eeuel and 
^ Sarah Lowell (Cony) Williams, was born in Augusta, Maine, 
Feb. 15, 1814, a descendant in the sixth generation from Rich- 
ard Williams, who came to this country from Glamorganshire, 
Wales, in 1632, and settled soon after in Taunton, Mass. His 
grandfather, Seth Williams, came from Easton, Mass., to 
Augusta in 1779, and in 1781 married Zilpha Ingraham, daugh- 
ter of Jeremiah Ingraham, who had removed to Augusta from 
Stoughton, Mass., in 1780. 

His father, Reuel Williams, was born in xVugusta, June 2, 
1783, and although his educational advantages did not extend 
beyond the academy of his native town, he received the honorary 
degree of A.M. from Harvard College in 1815. His mother, 
Sarah Lowell Cony, born July 18, 1784, was a daughter of 
Daniel Cony, of Sharon, Mass., a young physician, who in 
1776 married Susanna Curtis, daughter of Rev. Philip Curtis 
(H. C. 1738), born in Roxbury, Mass., but settled as pastor of 



98 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

a parish in Sharon. Dr. Cony came to Augusta in 1778, where 
he died in 1842 at the age of ninety years. 

Like his father before him Williams has resided in Augusta 
from his birth. He was named for a notable kinsman, Joseph 
Hart well, a farmer of Massachusetts, whose industry and probity 
were distinguishing characteristics, and they were faithfully im- 
pressed upon his young namesake by his parents as a stimulus 
to the acquisition of a like honorable reputation. At the age 
of twelve years he was placed in the family and under the in- 
struction of the Rev. Hezekiah Packard, S.T.D. (H. C. 1787), 
of Wiscasset, Maine, where he remained about two years, being 
one of the six boys attending that celebrated private school. In 
the spring of 1829 he entered the Mt. Pleasant Classical Insti- 
tute at Amherst, Mass., a school of like grade and distinction 
as the Round-Hill School at Northampton, Mass., and remained 
until the summer of 1830, when he entered the Freshman class 
of Harvard College. 

From the outset he showed himself a diligent, not to say an 
ambitious student, and was recognized as among the most meri- 
torious members of his class by election into the Phi Beta Kappa 
fraternity at the close of his Junior year. The college honor 
which he most valued, however, was conferred upon him by his 
classmates when they chose him Class Orator for the farewell 
ceremonies of the Senior year. 

Upon leaving college in 1834 he became a member of the 
Dane Law School at Cambridge, at that time under the care of 
Professors Joseph Story and Simon Greenleaf, whose invaluable 
instructions he enjoyed for the greater part of two years. Upon 
receiving the customary degree at graduation he returned home 
to complete his studies in the law office of his father. He was 
-admitted to the bar in the summer of 1837, and immediately 
succeeded to the law business of his father, who retired from 
practice upon being elected a Senator of the United States in 
1837. 

From that period he devoted himself to his profession until 
July, 1862, when the decease of his father, and the consequent 



JOSEPH HARTWELL WILLIAMS. 99 

duty then cast upon him of settling a large estate, made it neces- 
sary for him to withdraw from a profession well suited to his 
taste, and from which he had derived all reasonable satisfaction. 

In the early part of 1862 he had received at the hands of 
Gov. Washburn the gratifying compliment of a nomination to 
a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine ; 
but in view of the advanced age of his father, then close upon 
his eightieth year, and other claims of family and kindred, he 
put aside the tempting offer and declined to accept a position 
which, under different circumstances, would have been esteemed 
by him the attainment of his highest aim. 

In 1839 he had the honor of a place upon the military staff 
of Gov. Fairfield, which was not without interest and impor- 
tance ; for the exciting scenes of mustering troops and of 
military drill which grew out of the menacing attitude of the 
authorities of New Brunswick in asserting their side of the New 
England Boundary Dispute, occurred during Gov. Fairfield's 
spirited administration ; but not until 1857 was he called to un- 
dertake responsible duties in civil affairs. In early manhood he 
had become imbued with the political doctrines of Thomas 
Jefferson, and while at the Law School in Cambridge, in Novem- 
ber, 1836, he had cast his maiden ballot in company with class- 
mate Fox in favor of the presidential candidate of the Democrats 
of that day, and he continued in sympathy with the policy and 
voted for the candidates of that party till 1854. In that year 
he was a delegate to a State nominating convention, and was 
made chairman of its committee on resolutions, but felt con- 
strained to differ from his associates, who insisted upon reporting 
a resolution to approve the administration of President Pierce, 
who had signed the act of Congress to repeal the Missouri com- 
promise. A resolution for that purpose, however, was reported 
by the committee and adopted by the convention, and from that 
time he ceased to act with that political party as long as the in- 
stitution of slavery remained a subject of national concern, 

In 1854 he took an active part in the presidential campaign, 
and heartily advocated the election of Fremont, but with no 



100 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

thought of any public promotion following his services in that can- 
vass. On returning home, however, just before the election of 
that year, he found his name had been placed upon the Republican 
ticket for Senator for Kennebec by a County convention that had 
met, acted and adjourned without any previous intimation to him 
that such a purpose was entertained. The result was his election 
to the State Senate, and it proved a call to a wider sphere of 
duty than usually falls to the lot of a Senator. When the senate 
organized in January, 1 857, he was made president of that body, 
and at the end of six weeks it became his constitutional function 
to occupy the executive chair in place of Gov. Hamlin who then 
vacated it to accept the office of United States Senator. He has 
reason to believe that the duties of the executive office were satis- 
factorily discharged by the incumbent of it daring the remainder 
of that year. 

The vantage ground he thus occupied might well have justified 
an expectation on his part, under ordinary circumstances, of be- 
ing continued still longer in that position by a popular election ; 
but the inclination of political friends to take steps in that direc- 
tion was not encouraged by him. As long as he did not accept 
prohibition as the initial and final word in sociology, he was not 
likely to attract the indispensable votes of a body of men organ- 
ized and pledged to support only one who did. At the close of 
the year 1857, therefore, he returned to the congenial pursuits 
of his profession. 

In 1860, when warlike preparations became necessary for the 
suppression of the secession of the southern states, he gave his 
earnest approval to all measures, state and national, to uphold 
the Union ; and in the autumn of 1863, at the desire of his 
kinsman and neighbor, Gov. Cony, he consented to accept an 
election as a Representative in the Legislature if offered to him, 
and he was accordingly chosen a member of that body for the 
year 1864, and was subsequently reelected for the years 1865 
and 1866. During these years of legislative service he was one 
of the standing committee on finance, and chairman of it in 
1865 and 1866. He was also during three years a member of 






JOSEPH HARTWELL WILLIAMS. 101 

other important committees. He heartily advocated the policy 
of establishing a sinking fund to provide for the reimbursement 
of existing loans and such as might yet become necessary under 
the pressure of the war, and drafted the bill for that purpose 
which became a law Jan. 28, 1865. The text of this act is em- 
bodied in the present laws of the state concerning that subject. 
He regarded himself fortunate in being a member of the Legis- 
lature of 1865, as it thus became his privilege to voice the will 
of his constituents in voting to ratify the amendment of the 
Constitution of the United States, by which the existence of 
slavery within their jurisdiction was henceforth prohibited. 

In 1874 he again became a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, this time by the action of those of his fellow citizens who set 
up an independent ticket. The election took place during his ab- 
sence and without consent or knowledge on his part, and the 
subsequent service was reluctantly undertaken. The radical 
change made that year in the law governing the Hospital for the 
Insane was exceedingly objectionable in his view of it, and it 
was the cause of deep chagrin that he was unable to defeat it. 

In August, 1877, he accepted a nomination for Governor, 
which had been tendered him by the State Convention of Demo- 
crats held in the city of Portland in that month. With great 
reluctance he had permitted his name to be used in that conven- 
tion, for he had no desire for the office and no faith in the as- 
surance of friends that his well-known independent character 
would, that year, draw to his support from other parties votes 
enough to effect his election. The disappointment of their hope 
was no surprise to him, and he continued, in the enjoyment of 
his private career, far happier than any public life, however suc- 
cessful, could have made him. 

Among the private trusts committed to his hands has been the 
agreeable duty of fostering the interests and promoting the use- 
fulness of the Cony Female Academy, an institution founded in 
1815 by his grandfather Cony, and incorporated Feb. 10, 1818, 
by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He became a member 
of the Board of Trustees in 1851, and has served ever since in 
13 



102 THE CLASS OF 1834 

that capacity, and also as their secretary and treasurer. A sub- 
stantial and attractive brick school-building was erected by the 
trustees in 1880 upon the site of the old Academy, and it is now 
devoted — by the consent of the trustees and agreeably to existing 
laws — to the uses of a Free High School for the city of Augusta. 
So long as it shall stand it will serve, not only as a monument of 
the generosity and public spirit of its founder, but as a reminder 
of the service rendered by his trustees to the cause of sound 
learning which he had so much at heart. 

The subject of this sketch was married Sept. 26, 1842, to 
Apphia Putnam Judd, of Northampton, Mass., daughter of the 
distinguished antiquary, Sylvester Judd, and sister of the late 
Rev. Sylvester Judd (Yale College 1836), who was settled over 
the Unitarian Church in Augusta, in October, 1840, whose use- 
ful pastorate of twelve years (until his death in 1853) is still 
freshly remembered ; and whose published works in the field of 
professional and general literature attest his brilliant and versa- 
tile genius. 

The only child of the marriage was Arthur Lowell Williams, 
born Aug. 3, 1843; died Dec. 15, 1846. 



LIST OF STUDENTS, 

SOME TIME IN THE CLASS OF 1834, WHO DID NOT 
GKADUATE WITH IT. 



♦Ezra Abbot. 
*wllliam s. batchelder. 
*Levi Bigelow. 
♦Samuel Bugbee. 
♦Samuel S. Fairbanks. 
♦Benjamin L. Gorham. 
♦Thomas Hughes. 
♦Francis Henry Jackson. 
♦William Shaler Johnston. 
♦Horace Keating. 
?Thomas M. Keith. 
?N. K. Lombard. 
♦Charles S. Newell. 
♦Theodore Parker. 
♦Alfred L. Peters. 
♦John T. Pitman. 
♦George Bivers. 
♦Charles F. Schroeder. 
♦Henry C. Wayne. 
♦John Harvey Wright. 

The connection of most of the above-mentioned with the class of 1834 
was exceedingly slight and shadowy. Some were in college but a single 
term, and were never matriculated ; others but a year or less. Almost 
all died young. 

The only ones who identified themselves in any way with the class, 
appeared at its festivals or meetings, or answered letters of invitation or 
inquiry, were Messrs. 

Ezra Abbot, 

Francis Henry Jackson, 
Henry C. Wayne, 
John H. Wright, 

of whom notices are given ; also an interesting incident in the early life 
of Theodore Parker, connecting him with the class of 1834. 



NOTICES OF STUDENTS, 

SOME TIME IN THE CLASS OF 1834, WHO DID NOT 
GRADUATE WITH IT, 



EZEA ABBOT, 

THZRA ABBOT, son of Ezra and Hannah (Poor) Abbot, 
-*— ^ was born at Andover, Mass., Nov. 27, 1808. He com- 
menced his preparation for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, 
and finished it at Phillips Academy, Exeter, entering the latter 
institution in 1827. Having entered college in 1830, he re- 
mained till the end of the Sophomore year. Being several years 
older than most of his classmates, and feeling that a life of work 
was before him, he had not that love of study in the abstract 
that would make him patiently give the years of manhood to 
studies having no direct relation to his future pursuits. He was 
a man prompt to decide and to act upon his decision. Having 
chosen the medical profession, therefore, he decided to begin the 
study of it at once, and leaving college in 1832, pursued his 
studies at Andover and Lowell, and the Harvard Medical School, 
where he took his degree of M.D. in 1837. It is probable that 
he devoted some of the time between leaving college and taking 
his degree, an interval of five years, to some gainful calling, as 
it does not appear that he went abroad or otherwise lengthened 
the usual course of study. He immediately began practice, set- 
tling soon after at Canton, Mass., where he remained in full and 
active professional work till his death. 

He was a hard-working and popular physician, much and 
widely respected and beloved. A schoolmate at Exeter, Rev. 
Dr. Morison, said of him, "He was a born doctor by his make 



106 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

and the bent of his mind — so quick in decision and action." In 
his accounts and collections he was excessively careless, and con- 
sequently, as is the case with many men devoted to the welfare 
of the community, his pecuniary gains were very inadequate and 
short of what they should have been. 

Dr. Abbot was twice married : first, in 1839, to Harriet, daugh- 
ter of Frederic W. Lincoln, late Mayor of Boston, Mass., who 
died July 22, 1844, leaving one son, Ezra Lincoln Abbot, still 
living. Ten years after, Dr. Abbot married Caroline Howard 
Lincoln, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. 

Dr. Abbot died of paralysis, April 27, 1872. 



FEANCIS HENEY JACKSON. 

THEANCIS HENEY JACKSON, son of Dr. James (H. C. 
-*- 1796) and Elizabeth (Cabot) Jackson, was born in Boston, 
Mass., July 6, 1815. 

He received his preparatory education at the schools of William 
Wells (H. C. 1796) and D. G. lngraham (H. C. 1809). 

He spent the Freshman and Junior years at college, and on 
leaving began the study of medicine, but discontinued it to ac- 
cept the management or superintendency of some iron mines in 
eastern New York, in which his family were largely concerned. 
These not proving permanently profitable he returned to Boston, 
and became a real estate agent, and also a planner and builder 
of houses, in which vocations he had considerable success. He 
married Miss Sarah Anne Boott, of Boston, and left two children. 

Though he did not graduate, Mr. Jackson always took great 
interest in the affairs of the class, and attended its meetings and 
festivals. The annual meeting and dinner took place at his house 
in Boston on the evening of Commencement, 1873, at which 
time Mr. Jackson seemed likely to outlive most of his guests ; 
but died suddenly shortly after, July 5, 1873. 



THEODORE PARKER. 107 



THEODORE PARKER. 



rpHEODORE PARKER, son of John and Hannah (Stearns) 
Parker, was born at Lexington, Mass., Aug. 24, 1810. 
His connection with the class was not of long duration, as his 
comparatively mature years and remarkable mental powers made 
the ordinary amount and rate of college work seem to him en- 
tirely trivial and snail-like. After trying it for a short time he 
obtained permission to take charge of a school in Watertown, 
Mass., and keep up his connection with the class by passing all 
examinations with it. It is impossible to say how long this ar- 
rangement lasted, but he entered the Harvard Divinity School 
before the class of 1834 graduated, finished his course in Theology 
there in 1836, and received the degree of A.M. in 1840. 

To attempt any adequate account of so distinguished and well- 
known a man as Theodore Parker, is altogether beyond the scope 
and limits of a class history. Full and interesting memoirs of 
him have been published, and the leading facts of his life are 
well known. As he touched the college orbit in connection with 
the class of 1834, it has been thought best to mention him. 

One characteristic anecdote connecting him with the college is 
here given, which is certainly authentic, as it was had from his 
own lips. 

In the August of 1830, Theodore, who was then working on 
his father's farm in Lexington, Mass., haying being over and 
harvesting not begun, asked if he could have the use of the 
horse on a certain day. Receiving a favorable answer, he started 
early in the morning on horseback, rode down to Cambridge, 
tied his horse to the fence of the college grounds, and presented 
himself for examination with the other candidates for admission. 
Having been successful he rode home, and at the evening meal 
being questioned as to where he had been, he simply announced 
that he had entered Harvard College, which was the first intimation 
that his family had received of his intention to make the attempt. 



108 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

Thus, amid other work, he had accomplished, as a mere by-play, 
what usually occupies the whole time of young men for several 
years with every advantage of direction and instruction. 

His wonderful memory, great powers of acquisition, and ability 
with his pen and tongue, would, no doubt, have gained him all 
the distinction that can be had in collegiate life had he remained 
to graduate. What he accomplished in his comparatively short 
life, dying in 1860, at Florence, in Italy, where he had gone in 
search of health, is well known to all. 



HENRY CONSTANTINE WAYNE. 

TTENRY CONSTANTINE WAYNE, son of Justice James 
-' — ■- M. Wayne, of the United States Supreme Court, was born 
in Savannah, Ga., in 1815. 

He left college at the end of the Junior year, entered the 
West Point Military Academy in 1834, became a second lieu- 
tenant in the Fourth Artillery in 1838, and was promoted first 
lieutenant in the First Artillery in 1842. He was assistant in- 
structor in military and cavalry tactics at West Point from 1841 
to 1843, and was made captain and quartermaster in 1846. He 
served with the army in Mexico, and was brevetted Major for 
gallant and meritorious services at Contreras and Cherubusco. 

Soon after the annexation of the territory acquired from 
Mexico, in the absence of railroads, etc., the question of trans- 
portation through that vast region awakened the lively interest 
of the government, and it is believed that Major Wayne first 
broached the idea of using camels for that purpose. At all 
events, he was commissioned to visit Egypt and other oriental 
countries, with instructions to study the habits and capacities of 
these " ships of the desert," with the view to their importation 
into this country. He made a thorough study of the subject, 



HENRY CONSTANTINE WAYNE. 109 

and upon his report the government imported a large number of 
these beasts into Texas. 

At the breaking out of the late war, when Georgia seceded, 
Major Wayne cast in his fortunes with his native State, and was 
appointed quartermaster-general of Georgia. It was to his 
knowledge of the details of military requirements that the troops 
sent from Georgia to the theatre of war owed the completeness 
of their equipment. His devotion to the service of the side he 
had taken, was unsparing, and towards the close of the struggle 
he received the command of a brigade, and was with the little 
army that disputed Sherman's march through the State. 

When peace returned, Gen. Wayne entered upon the lumber 
and commission business, but after a number of years retired. 
He was United States Commissioner for several years, and was 
instrumental in securing justice for the people of his section. 

Gen. Wayne was a fluent and thoughtful writer, and con- 
tributed often to the columns of the newspapers. He was also 
the author of several professional works, among which may be 
mentioned, " A Manual of Sword Exercise." He was very self- 
sacrificing in the cause of humanity when the yellow fever swept 
Savannah, and staid as a nurse when so many others fled in 
dismay. 

Gen. Wayne was twice married, and leaves several children 
by his first wife. 



JOHN HARVEY WRIGHT. 

JOHN HARVEY WRIGHT, son of John S. and Mary 
^ (Wellman) Wright, was born at Piermont, N. H., May 7, 
1815. Coming to Boston in 1825, he was placed in the Public 
Latin School, and entered Harvard in 1830. His name appears 
in the catalogue of the Freshman year only, and he graduated at 
Amherst in 1834. 
14 



11.0 THE CLASS OF 1834. 

He received his medical education at the Harvard Medical 
School, and entered the navy as Assistant Surgeon in 1839. 
From this date, for a period of twenty years, he was in nearly 
constant active service, when, his health failing, he was retired 
in 1861 "for long and continued service," holding at his death 
the office of " Medical Director " under the act of March 2, 1871. 

During Dr. Wright's long period of active service, he visited 
many quarters of the world, — the East Indies three times, the 
coast of Africa, the Mediterranean, and Mexico. He was present 
at the storming of Yera Cruz, the loss of the Somers, and at the 
bombardment of the Barrier Forts, including five days opera- 
tions. His letters from China and Mexico, published in Har- 
per's Magazine, interested many readers, and gave proof of the 
literary ability of the writer. 

He had a passion for books and engravings, and had made a 
collection of both, perhaps unsurpassed by that of any private 
individual, which was unfortunately destroyed in the great fire. 
He was a man of great culture and sound judgment, which made 
him always interesting and instructive ; but what endeared him 
most to all who ever came in contact with him, was his unvarying 
sweetness of disposition, under the painful disease from which he 
suffered. No one ever saw him angry or even irritable. 

Feb. 5, 1863, Dr. Wright married Miss Anna M. Nichols, 
daughter of Lyman Nichols, Esq., of Boston, who survives 
him, with two young sons. 

Dr. Wright died Dec. 26, 1879. 

Though his connection with Harvard College was brief, and 
he graduated elsewhere, when he became a resident of Boston 
he identified himself with his first Alma Mater and the class of 
1834, which he had entered, and took a lively interest in all class 
affairs. 



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